



^W^ 



III 



fflN fflflH 

■■$■ 



Mm 



LIFE LESSONS 



SCHOOL OF CHRISTIAN DUTY. 



BY THE AUTHOR Off 



"THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN HUSS," ETC. 






NEW YORK: 
ANSON I). F. RANDOLPH, 



110 BROADWAY, 

Corner of Ninth Street. 

1864, 



n 



d?c4.?></fr*r 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 

ANSOS- D. F. EANDOLPH, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern 
District of New York. 



;V-3 



EDWARD 0. JENKINS, 
printer & Stcreotgper, 
No. 20 Noeth William St. 



THE aim of this volume is practical throughout. It 
is designed to conduct the mind of the reader on- 
ward from a state of religious indifference to a sober con- 
templation of the objects and duties of life, and to urge 
them upon the heart and conscience. Without entering 
minutely into the obligations that pertain to our several 
relations as social beings, its main theme is, Life and its 
Duties. Hence its title, Life Lessons. 

Some portions of the volume have been published in 
different forms, and, by some readers, will doubtless be 
recognized. They have here been restored to their proper 
place in the chapters to which they belong. If the an- 
ticipations of the individual at whose instance the work 
has been prepared for publication shall be fulfilled in the 
useful service which it may render to the cause of Christ, 
the author's labor will be more than requited. 



CONTENTS 



SERMON PAGE 

I. — A Picture of Human Life 7 

II. — Two Types of Human Life 14 

III. — The Vanity of Life 22 

IV. — The True Dignity of Life 30 

V. — The Compass of Life 37 

VI. — Duty, the Law of Life 44 

VII. — Life-service Due to God 51 

VIII. — Living for Others 57 

IX. — Atheistic Evasion of Duty 65 

X.— The Good of Life 78 

XL — Ignorance of the Good of Life 85 

XII. — Need of Revelation 93 

XIIL— The Law of Nature 106 

XIV. — The Revealed Rule of Life 112 

XV. — Terms of the Life Eternal 124 

XVI.— The Fatal Lack 131 

XVII. — Life from the Dead 137 

XVIII.—" The Wonderful" 144 

XIX. — The Christian Life— "What it Implies 161 

XX.— The First Aim of Life 168 

XXI. — The Conflict of Life 175 

XXII. — Life an Education 184 

XXIII.— Culture of a Holy Life 191 



6 CONTENTS. 

SERMON PAGE 

XXIV.— Thb Life Founded on Christ 199 

XXV.— The Living Temple 213 

XXVI. — Living for the Unseen 220 

XXVII. — The Standard of the Christian Life 234 

XXVIIL— The Tent and the Altar 244 

XXIX. — Life's Tears and Harvest 254 

XXX.— Walking in the Truth 265 

XXXI.— Character 272 

XXXIL— Social Discipline— Its Significance 282 

XXXIIL— Influence 290 

XXXIV.— The Tongue 305 

XXXV.— Power of Example 319 

XXXVI. — Power and Responsirility of Wealth 332 

XXXVII. — Power of Association ; or, on Pitching One's Tent to- 
ward Sodom 346 

XXXVIII.— Blessings and Duties 363 

XXXIX.— Value of Time 381 

XL.— Waste of Time 394 

XLI. — The Psalm of Life „-.... 400 



LIFE LESSONS 



i. 

A PICTURE OP LIPE. 

"They walk on in darkness." — Psalm lxxxv. 5. 

IN one of our New England villages is a graveyard — 
in most respects not unlike scores of others — in which 
sleep the remains of hundreds, and perhaps, thousands, 
belonging to past generations. Many a moss-covered 
gravestone is there, and " many a holy text " is sculptured 
on those monuments which, ever sinking deeper in the 
sod, or already fallen to the earth, seem themselves to 
envy the oblivion of the dust they cover, and by their 
own crumbling and decay, as well as their inscriptions, 
" teach the rustic moralist to die," 

But human enterprise has for many years been busy, 
encroaching upon that sacred enclosure. A valuable 
quarry, cropping out on the neighboring bank, offered 
that temptation which to the industry and thrift of our 
countrymen is irresistible. The rock was quarried and 
carried away, leaving as the excavation approached the 
graveyard, a precipitous wall from thirty to fifty feet 
high. Still pressing on, the laborers cleared the rock 
away, till only at a single narrow point could the grave- 
yard be approached, and at last, this too was assaulted, 
threatening to change the peninsular into a rock-walled 
island of the dead. 



8 LIFE LESSONS. 

What a spectacle ! Human enterprise sweeping around 
such a spot as that, sparing it indeed, but leaving it iso- 
lated and inaccessible, chafing against it as a barrier, 
and shaking the sacred dust of its graves with the shock 
of its explosions, disturbing the hallowed silence appro- 
priate to it, by the echoes of rude voices and the din of 
pick and chisel, and desecrating, to the extremest verge of 
possibility, the scene where friendship had found sad 
pleasure to linger, and affection had been wont to weep ! 
From morning till night, human industry is intensely ac- 
tive, almost beneath the shadow of the monuments, but it 
has itself built up the wall, that keeps it, although so 
near, from all contact with them, or any chance to peruse 
the stone-graven lines that speak the solemn lessons of the 
grave. Unheeding toil takes no thought of the voices 
that seem flung back to it, in every echo of its blows, 
from those rocky walls within which the dust of the dead 
finds repose. 

Who can regard such a spectacle without feeling that 
it is emblematic — that a painter, turning from the picture 
of Cole's " Voyage of Life," might have been warranted 
in selecting this as the picture of life itself — its energy, 
activity, and enterprise, rolling on like a torrent, till it 
touches the realm of the dead, then pausing only to cir- 
cle around it, and sweep away every approach, every 
foot-path by which human thought draws near to medi- 
tate on human destiny, or by which the toiling laborer 
himself might mount up to read the lessons of his own 
mortality ? 

It is a sad truth, that the industry and energy of man 
too often work just to wall him out from ready access to 
the sphere of serious thought and religious meditation. 
He digs and mines and excavates, only to rear higher and 



A PICTURE OF LIFE. g 

render more insuperable the barriers that shut him out 
from converse with his higher interests or communion 
with his God. There he is — his life long — under the 
very shadow of graves and monuments, the dust of the 
departed crumbling around him, as it shakes with the 
stroke of enterprise encroaching on its domain ; and yet 
every hour, as he plunges deeper for new treasures, he is 
but building higher that precipitous wall which shuts 
him out from access to what is so near, and casts ever 
deeper and darker shadows over his scene of toil. Thus 
he forgets where he is ; he forgets what he is. He heeds 
not that soon the waves of enterprise will roll and chafe 
around his own grave. 

If there is anything that may well occasion surprise 
it is the thoughtlessness of dying men — their thoughtless- 
ness with regard to their spiritual and eternal interests. 
They traverse seas. They explore continents. They 
pry into the secrets of the wilderness. They climb the 
snow-capped mountains. They mark the transit of dis- 
tant planets. They unroll antique parchments and pore 
over moth-eaten volumes. They excavate buried cities 
like Nineveh and Pompeii. They decipher old inscrip- 
tions and scrutinize Egyptian hieroglyphs. They study 
the fossil autographs of dead ages, on the rocky pages of 
the earth, till the globe becomes their library, and cata- 
racts and currents cut the leaves of long sealed volumes 
that they may be read. They question the microscope 
for the minute wonders of creative skill in the structure 
of a sand grain, an animalcule, or a snow-flake. They 
dissolve air and water into their original elements, and 
unfold the laws that govern the combination of these ele- 
ments. They track the lightning to its lair, tame it and 
teach it, charged with messages, to leap along their iron 
1* 



io LIFE LESSONS. 

wires. They penetrate the invisible realm of mind, 
search out its constitution, the order of its faculties, the 
methods of their operation, the laws by which they are 
governed. They give wing to fancy and revel in the 
strange, weird domain of imaginary existence, surrender- 
ing their being almost to the spell of fiction and romance, 
and yet — while the mind is thus roused to intense activ- 
ity, while the waves of the sea of human thought roll on 
and cover almost every thing tangible or conceivable — 
the one great theme which towers above others like the 
Alps above their valleys, is left, like a mountain island 
of the ocean, neglected and unexplored. Men are intent 
to study the world around, but not the world within them. 
They read the doom of nations and forget their own. 
They decipher old crumbling monuments of stone, but 
translate not the inscriptions on the living tablets of the 
heart. They linger spell-bound over the poet's page. 
They sit at the feet of the philosopher. They listen to 
the sagacity of statesmen. They are kindled to enthusi- 
asm by the creations of the artist, or by the magnificent 
span of cathedral domes, and yet when a " greater than 
the temple/ 7 a " greater than Solomon," he that " spake 
as never man spake/ 7 opens his lips to reveal the secrets, 
of the life eternal, they turn away, with stolid indiffer- 
ence or cold contempt. 

Can this be so ? Can it be that man can so regard all 
things else, and forget himself? Can it be that the one 
subject of thought, which to him is most important, most 
vital, which transcends every other, which confronts him 
perpetually wherever he turns, that is suggested in all 
the forms of nature, the buried seed, the fading flower, 
the ripening harvest — that is whispered in all the seasons, 
in the springtime that bids him sow the seed, in the sum- 



A PICTURE OF LIFE. 1 1 

mer that shows hiui a thousand symbols of that higher 
beauty which the soul may win, in the autumn with its 
harvests, asking him what from all his years angel reap- 
ers shall gather, in the winter that speaks of age that 
will need a shelter and support which nature cannot give 
— can it be that this one subject thus suggested, and sug- 
gested ever also by his own experience, by the cravings 
of the soul, by the aspirations of hope, by irrepressible 
longings for immortality, nay, by his failing strength and 
tear-dimmed eye, by the badges of mourning, the funeral 
procession, the graveyard mound, the dull echo of the 
clods as they strike the coffin lid — can it be that this one 
subject of his own personal spiritual destiny thus pressed 
on his notice, thus whispered in every breath, thus pho- 
tographed in every scene, is just the one of all others 
which he banishes from his thoughts, and which for him 
is left to stand amid the surging ocean-waves of human 
activity precipitous and inaccessible like the island of the 
dead ? It is a humiliating question to answer, but it is 
not a difficult one. The answer is before us, in what we 
see and hear and feel. That which justly claims human 
attention first, is neglected till the last. How it must be 
thrust upon men before they will entertain it ! How it 
comes knocking at the door, and is left unheeded ! How 
it speaks but gains no reply ! How men turn their back 
upon it, and haste away, one to his farm and another to 
his merchandise ! How thorough is their practical obliv- 
ion of their spiritual destiny ! Sabbath after Sabbath 
traces solemn words on the memory, but the first ripple 
of week-day traffic rolls over them and shows that they 
have been traced on the sand. 

What a wondrous art of forgetfulness ! What a per- 
fection of heedlessness ! There, right before them, like 



12 LIFE LESSONS. 

the Alps to the traveler's eye, looms up this great theme, 
in a grandeur and magnificence which pour contempt on 
all the little toys and vanities that rivet their gaze, and 
their busy ceaseless activity only clouds them about with 
dust, till they stand all unconscious beneath the awful 
shadow that comes down over them from those sublime 
heights to which thought should soar. Thus they often 
live, and thus, often too, they die. The voice that admon- 
ishes them to better things, is as the voice of one crying 
unheeded in the wilderness. Friends by their side drop 
away and disappear, but no earnest questioning peers 
into the nature of that unseen world that is brought so 
near. Their houses crumble over their heads and need 
constant repair, but they seek no title to " a house not 
made with hands eternal in the heavens." They are all 
absorbed in the petty losses and gains of business, and 
seek not to lay up treasures where moth and rust cannot 
corrupt. 

See them in varied spheres pursuing various objects, 
and only agreed in rejecting one, persistently pressed on 
their notice ! There they are, poring over the ledger. 
There they are, bending intent over " the chequered 
board f they have come back from a friend's grave, per- 
haps, to renew their game. The Sabbath comes — that 
hallowed day which seems the golden link between earth 
and that better land of the eternal Sabbath, yet how its 
hours drag, and how amusements crowd out devotion, 
and how the sanctuary, visited possibly once, is thence- 
forth shunned ! It would seem as if religion was as repul- 
sive as a heathen Dagon — as if the light which it kindles 
and flings in loving missionary beams of mercy along the 
pilgrim's way deep into the shadows of the dark valley, 
was unwelcome — as if the language in which it speafoi 



A PICTURE OF LIFE. 13 

of " the glory to be revealed in us," was that of unmean- 
ing speculation — as if the best thing for a man, a possi- 
ble heir of immortal blessedness, was to keep himself as 
unconcerned and indifferent within the cheerless walls of 
his earthly prison-house, as the worms that crawl around 
him, or the spiders that spin their webs to curtain the 
barred windows of his cell. Is this wise ? Is it rational ? 
Is it becoming ? Is it the part which lie should act who 
knows, beyond all shadow of doubt, that soon his work 
on earth will be done, and the seed-time of the life immor- 
tal will have forever fled ? Should he give thought free 
range on all other topics, but forbid it to touch the one 
of most momentous concern ? Should the mind soar in 
every other sphere, but crawl only when it enters the 
sphere of spiritual truth and religious duty? Should 
years be piled on years in order to climb and grasp a 
wreath or fortune that ere long will slip like sand from 
the cheated fingers, and only the scattered dust and frag- 
ments of time be left for the foundations of the life ever- 
lasting ? 

Each one must answer these questions for himself. 
Each one knows how he has lived, and whether the guilt 
of inconsiderateness can be laid to his charge. You can 
look back and scrutinize what has secured your attention. 
You can see the current and direction of your thoughts 
and the channels they have traced. Have they been such 
as your calm judgment approves ? Are you satisfied, if 
the claims of religion have been uniformly and persis- 
tently neglected? Do you justify such neglect, or do 
you condemn yourself? Do you class yourself with the 
brute or with the man, with the unreflecting or the 
thoughtful ? Do you count your final destiny a matter 
of no account, or one of infinite moment ? 



II. 



TWO TYPES OF LIFE. 

u Better is it to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the 
spoil with the proud." — Pkot. xvi. 19. 

OF that great Roman Emperor, Augustus Caesar, it 
is related that on the morning of his death, sensible 
of his approaching end, he called for a mirror, and de- 
sired his gray hairs and beard to be decently arranged. 
Then asking of his friends whether he had played well 
his part in the drama of life, he muttered a verse from 
a comic epilogue, inviting them to greet his last exit 
with applause. 

Perhaps the world had never seen a greater ruler die. 
The Roman Empire, excluding the more barbarous na- 
tions, was the empire of the world. With some peculiar 
advantages, yet with art and arms, Augustus had grasped 
it and ruled it, and made it his own. He had acted an 
imposing part in the great drama of history. He had 
reached the highest point of mere earthly ambition. He 
had been neither a debauchee nor a tyrant. One might 
have said of him, that nothing that this world could give 
was wanting to render his lot enviable. Yet who does 
not gaze in pity on that — an emperor's deathbed ? Who 
does not feel a painful contrast between his last hours, 
as he gazes at his gray locks in the mirror, and talks of 
having played his part well in the drama of life, and the 
exultant triumph of " such an one as Paul the aged," 



TWO TYPES OF LIFE. 15 

writing with manacled hand from his chill prison, on the 
eve of martyrdom — ■" I have fought a good fight, I have 
finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth 
there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness ? " One 
seems to be thinking of the applause of men. He wants 
the voice of praise and flattery to cheer his dying hour. 
The other is looking forward not to the praise of man, 
but to the " well done " of the great Judge. One feels 
that his jeweled crown will no longer cover that gray 
head, ripe for the sickle of the great Reaper. The other 
is assured of an everlasting crown, such as senates can- 
not grant, nor death take away. One looks back on a 
life of successful, but selfish ambition. The other has 
the testimony of a good conscience that he has lived to 
serve God. One has climbed the heights of power and 
surrounded himself with the pageants of wealth and 
feasts and splendor, only to die like a play-actor. The 
other has deliberately chosen a path which, through 
mobs, and prisons, and scorn, and hardships unnumbered, 
leads him to a martyr's death, but a martyr's triumph. 
Both wrought with rare ability and rare energy. Both 
exerted a powerful influence on the history of the world. 
Each in a measure attained his end. But in the final 
result the sceptered hand grasped a bubble, and the 
manacled hand grasped a crown. 

It might seem a vain question — which of these men is 
most to be envied, for no one of us could by any possi- 
bility be the one or the other. Only one in all the mil- 
lions of the ancient world could have been an Augustus. 
Only a few could have been like Paul. Each of us has 
limitations, not of our own choice or appointment, affixed 
to his lot. But taking the two men as types of classes — 
the successful man of the world and the self-denying 



16 LIFE LESSONS. 

Christian, the one who lives to be applauded and dies 
thinking what men will say of him, and the one who is 
content to forego all if he may but have the testimony 
of a good conscience and the smile of God, and we can 
say for ourselves which is to be preferred. There is a 
vast difference. It is plain to every one. In show and 
parade they are quite unlike, but if one glitters like isin- 
glass in the noonday of its own splendor, the other is no 
less a jewel though you have to mine for it in prisons, or 
wash off from it the mud of slander and contempt. 

There are some men who seem to have no ambition to 
be the one thing or the other. They live extempore. 
They have very little of plan or purpose. They play 
truant for seventy years, and never learn the first lesson 
of shaping life. They are like straws floating with the 
stream. The friendships they form, and the circumstan- 
ces in which they are placed mould them like wax. 
They have no more moral shape or stability than water 
poured into the hollow of a rock. They do not really 
live ; they just stagnate. Their hope is ease ; their 
dread, work or starvation. They are candidates for 
temptation and crime, and if saved from these, it is to 
sink into moral cyphers. They are men who think little, 
and who dream life away in a dull routine. Ingenuity 
itself would be taxed to put anything but their names on 
their gravestone. The biographer would only be able 
to write of them, they were born, they ate, they drank, 
they fell sick and died. No high purpose roused their 
energies. No noble or generous aim broke the even tenor 
of their selfishness. In the harvest-field of life, they are 
stalks that never headed. Morally considered, they are 
mere chaff and stubble. 

Does this seem like caricature or irony? It is the 



TWO TYPES OF LIFE. i 7 

simple truth. There are men who have no more idea ap- 
parently of shaping their lives by any recognized stand- 
ard than the ox that ploughs in the furrow. But is not 
this a crime against reason ? Is it not a criminal stu- 
pidity for any one capable of reflection to find himself in 
a world like this, and never ask — what am I here for ? 
Does it not become him as he opens his eyes thoughtfully 
to the light of this world, to consider with himself that 
he is here for some purpose worthy of the powers with 
which he is endowed, and the privileges with which he 
is favored ? Everything is valuable for what you can 
make out of it, or what you can do with it. So it is with 
human life, and there is nothing else that can be made 
either so worthless or so precious. You may cut the 
ivory into beautiful shapes. You may mint the gold into 
shining coin. You may chisel the marble till it seems to 
embody the grandest ideal of the majesty of intellect. 
You may polish the rough-looking stone till it glitters as 
a jewel fit for the brow of beauty, or the kingly crown. 
You may subject the tangled, rocky waste to culture, till 
it becomes a Central Park ; but neither ivory, nor gold, 
nor marble, nor fertile soil, nor diamonds of the mine 
have such a native capacity as these years of life. Char- 
ity can cut them into shapes as beautiful as the ministry 
of a Howard, or the pity of the Good Samaritan. Faith 
can mint them into deeds of piety and devotion, bearing 
the image and superscription of Jesus of Nazareth. Self- 
denial may chisel them into the statues of goodness rising 
to the stature of a perfect manhood in Christ Jesus. In- 
tegrity and fidelity to duty can make them resplendent 
with a loveliness, and precious with a value that belong 
not to even a Koh-i-Noor jewel, while he that cultivates 
them in the fear of God can turn the soil once covered 



18 LIFE LESSONS. 

with the weeds of vice and the brambles of sin, and the 
rocks of depravity, into an earthly Eden, in which the 
music of a conscience void of offense will chase all care 
and fear away, and over which angels will delight to 
linger and to gaze. 

It is indeed a surprising thing to think of what the 
humblest life is capable. It does not need a throne for 
its pedestal. Its real value does not depend on its being 
conspicuously exhibited. The little flower that blooms 
in the wilderness is as exquisitely delicate and fragrant 
as if transplanted to royal gardens. The solitary trav- 
eller — some Mungo Park perhaps — alone is cheered by it, 
but the gaze and admiration of thousands would not add 
to it a single grace. So it is with the moral beauty of 
lowly life. Its value is in itself, not in being the centre 
of some elegant nosegay. To be is more than to seem. 
The great good man wants no echoes of mob applause. 
God's eye can supply the place of admiring crowds. 
You might put some Robinson Crusoe on a lone island 
of the sea, but even there, if his heart glows with love to 
God, and he learns submission to his lot, and soars on 
the wings of faith to the heights of holy thought and di- 
vine communings, how under the good man's tread, the 
lone isle becomes a Patmos, and his own heart a living 
temple, and his devout meditations the lofty worship of 
sanctuary service. 

Go into the obscurest walks of life ; leave senates and 
pageants and the echoes of fame far behind, and see what 
the most unpretending can do in works that cheer the 
sufferer, that strengthen the tempted, that minister the 
oil of sympathy to bleeding hearts, that whisper hope to 
the despairing — and whose spirit, in the fragrance of 
goodness is as " ointment poured forth." See that cheer- 



TWO TYPES OF LIFE. 19 

fill self-denial that reminds one of the two mites of the 
poor widow — that unswerving attachment to all the 
friends of Christ that recalls to mind the Moabitess of 
old exclaiming, " thy people shall be my people, and thy 
God my God," — that gentleness and meekness and char- 
ity that calm the turbulence of passion, like oil poured 
on the troubled waves — that tenderness of conscience 
which seems to hallow all around it, like " the burning 
bush," so that no sandaled foot may tread upon it — that 
unwearied prayerfulness which sanctifies every duty and 
transforms it into an angel service — that patience and 
submission which are the loftiest heroism, and which 
without a murmur exclaim, " not my will, but thine be 
done," — that kindly beneficence which, radiant as the 
morning's light, carries hope and smiles to the home of 
sorrow, and that sublime faith which has power to change 
the shanty, the garret, or even the prison cell into a 
Bethel, and bring down all around them such a hallowed 
presence that angels seem to hover there, and unceiled 
rafters or damp walls seem to echo the voice of the mas- 
ter — " my peace I give unto you." 

Here are attainments within the reach of all who are 
willing to walk by faith. Here is a success that is within 
your grasp, which no calamity can foil. I would not say, 

" Lives of great men all remind us 
We may make our lives sublime." 

I would put good in place of great. You do not want an 
emperor's chances, or a Paul's chances. You do not 
need purse or scrip, a scholar's lore, or an orator's elo- 
quence. You have now all that is essential ; you would 
have if you were only a poor Lazarus at the rich man's 
gate. 






20 



LIFE LESSONS. 



What then, with the help of G-od always, will you 
make of your own life ? What standard will you set up, 
what plan, what model will you adopt ? Will you say 
it is not worth caring for ? It is mere rubbish, seaweed, 
vapor. True it is brief, transient. It fleets with every 
moment. But this only admonishes you to snatch the 
passing hour, to work while it is day. But it is a grand 
mistake to say it is valueless. There is nothing else on 
earth more precious. The man that built great Babylon 
accomplished less for himself than the man who by God's 
grace is built up on the foundation of Jesus Christ into a 
living temple. The time will soon come when the rich 
must leave all their possessions, and the king must lay 
down a sceptre which his dying grasp can hold no longer. 
Then the only treasure of the soul will be found in itself. 
All else, however inviting once, will be only like the blos- 
soms that fall off when the fruit ripens. We shall have 
only what we are. What we have made of our life will 
be all that we can carry with us out of this world up to 
the judgment seat. An emperor, breathing his last, 
comes down to the common level of mortals. The test 
of success will be what survives our dust. 

And that which is most precious does survive. And 
what is it? The results, the harvest, for good or evil, 
for weal or woe. of these fleeting years. What shall 
these be ? They are your inventory for eternity. They 
are your portion forever, to rejoice in or regret. What 
they shall be, you are determining now, you are deter- 
mining even while you hesitate to determine. The artist 
who has a block of marble put into his hands that he 
may shape out of it a Ximrod or an Angel, may defer to 
do anything, till to him, though he shapes no Ximrod 
out of it, the block is worthless. So, only worse, it may 



TWO TYPES OF LIFE. 21 

be with you. For the block is crumbling. Every mo- 
ment chips off a minute fragment, and already perhaps 
its integrity is gone. It is time to determine between 
the Nimrod and the Angel, the Emperor and the Apostle. 
Yours is a solemn trust, a fearful responsibility. The 
burden is upon you and you cannot lay it off. An " in- 
heritance incorruptible " is staked upon the issue. Just 
to live involves the necessity of accepting or rejecting it? 
Shall it be yours ? This is the momentous question which 
you are to answer for yourself. The issue cannot be 
evaded. It must be met. Will you not meet it man- 
fully, fairly, intelligently? Your welfare demands it. 
Your reason demands it. Your conscience demands it. 
Your Maker and your Final Judge demand it. 



III. 

THE VANITY OP LIFE. 

"Vanity of vanities." — Ec. ii. 1. 

WITHOUT the Christian hope, and the truth upon 
which it is based, what is this world but empti- 
ness and vanity ? Grand processions, mighty armies, the 
trains of enterprise and caravans of commerce sweep 
over it, but they flit by and vanish like shadows. Great 
men arise, and their names are borne on the echoes of 
fame around the globe • but when the bubble of their 
greatness bursts, and the current of time rolls on, nothing 
is left but a transient and vanishing memory. There is 
a magnificent dirge-like music in that passage in which 
Jeremy Taylor describes the humiliating end of earthly 
hopes : 

" Many men, by great labors and affronts, many indig- 
nities and crimes, labor only for a pompous epitaph, and 
a loud title upon their marble ; whilst those, into whose 
possessions their heirs or kindred are entered, are for- 
gotten, and lie unregarded as their ashes, and without 
concernment and relation as the turf on the face of their 
grave. A man may read a sermon, the best and most 
passionate that ever man preached, if he shall but enter 
into the sepulchres of kings. In the same Escurial where 
the Spanish princes live in greatness and power, and 
decree war or peace, they have wisely placed a cemetery, 
where their ashes and their glory shall sleep till time 



THE VANITY OF LIFE. 



2 3 



shall be no more. And where our kings have been 
crowned, their ancestors lie interred, and they must walk 
over their grand-sire's head to take his crown. There 
is an acre sown with royal seed, the copy of the greatest 
change, from rich to naked, from ceiled roofs to arched 
coffins, from living like gods to die like men." 

You do not need to look up to the heavens in their 
magnificent array of revolving worlds to be prompted to 
ask, " Lord, what is man?" you may just look around you 
and see the various living forms that are flitting to dark- 
ness and oblivion, or you may look beneath your feet at 
the earth already furrowed by graves, yet ever opening 
to take new treasures of affection to its cold bosom ; and 
even then it will be difficult to repress the thought 
suggested by the exclamation of Edmund Burke, speak- 
ing of the sudden departure of his compeers and rivals, 
" What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue !" 

" We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works 
Die too. The deep foundations that we lay — 
Time ploughs them up, and not a trace remains. 
"We build on what we deem eternal rock, 
A future age asks where the fabric stood, 
And in the dust, sifted and searched in vain, 
The undiscoverable secret sleeps." 

What thoughtful mind can fail to be impressed by the 
lesson of human frailty that seems traced out before our 
eyes wherever we turn ? Think of Nineveh's glory, and 
all the splendor of Assyrian kings, and then think of a 
Layard excavating the crumbling marbles on which 
Assyrian victories were inscribed. Think of Tyre, once 
mistress of the seas, whose merchants were princes, and 
then see the fisherman spread his nets on the rocks half 



24 



LIFE LESSONS. 



covered by the rubbish of her palaces ! Think of Egyp- 
tian pyramids, the tombs of kings, and the rock-hewn 
vaults where the embalmed bodies of princes were laid, 
and then see the Arab strip them of their cerements to 
light his fire and cook his scanty meal ! Walk over the 
great battlefields — a Waterloo, an Antietam, a Gettys- 
burg — where beneath the green turf, with no memorial, 
unless perhaps a mound, the remains of thousands are 
sinking back to the decay that mingles them with their 
kindred dust, and who can withhold the exclamation, 
" Lord what is man !" All nature sympathises with these 
sad objects. The withered leaf of autumn rustles upon 
the listening ear parables of human decay. The flowing 
stream floats onward, and away forever the foam that 
once sparkled in bubbles brilliant as the hues of youthful 
hope. Setting suns are daily recurring emblems, and 
the shadows of night foreshadow the night of the grave. 
Who can look at the lonely monument that affection 
rears, and see it standing clear, and cold, and solitary, 
only now and then visited by the curious wanderer, who 
reads its inscription with little more emotion than a name 
on a box of merchandise, and not feel the force of those 
lines of Grey's elegy : 

" The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
Await alike the inexorable hour, 

The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 

What are all biographies, but more extended funeral 
inscriptions — what is history but the graveyard of past 
activity in which philosophy loves to muse ? And what 
is all our learning, but threads which we spin off from 



THE VANITY OF LIFE. 25 

the cocoons of dead men's thoughts which they wove 
around them with life-long toil, as the shrouds of their 
own mortality ? 

Surely, it is not mere fancy which reads parables, and 
more than parables in the life and the end of those 
who command the world's language. One, after another 
rises and moves along before us on the stage of human 
action, but each, as he goes down amid the shadows of 
age, moralizes on the emptiness of the pageant in which 
he has played his part. I cannot envy the feelings or 
disposition of the man who sees without emotion the 
change that soon passes over all human greatness — a 
Newton prying into the mysteries of the heavens, and ex- 
ploring spaces from which the swiftest beam of light, 
starting while he lies in his cradle, could not reach him 
before his body is laid in its grave, and yet at last with 
enfeebled intellect poring over a problem of which he 
can only say, "I knew it once" — a Duke of Marlborough, 
the greatest general of his age, receiving almost royal 
honors and the world's applause, yet at last exhibited for 
so much extra by his servants to the curious visitor of 
of those magnificent grounds which his taste and wealth 
had changed to an earthly Eden ; and finally, when death 
comes, and honors wait on his crumbling dust, and the 
funeral car is covered with shields whereon, are inscribed 
those victorious battle-fields — Blenheim and Eamillies, 
Lille and Tournay, Bethune and Ruremonde — vanishing 
from among men, only to have the after world criticise 
the meanness that was combined with his valor, and the 
penuriousness and treachery that were allied with his 
sagacity — or a William Pitt, as Prime Minister of Eng- 
land, wielding in his hand almost the destinies of nations, 
sinking in the midst of his years from his place of power 
2 



LIFE LESSONS. 

to the helplessness of an invalid, his body, within a fe\v 
hours of his decease, left unattended in a lonely tenement^ 
from which every living occupant had vanished — or a 
Napoleon setting up or overthrowing thrones by a stroke 
of his pen, at last a neglected prisoner on a far-off ocean 
island, forced there to speculate in bitterness on the in- 
stability of all human greatness, and the uncertainty of 
all human prospects. 

And what a sad story — upon which Solomon, if living 
now, might well moralize — comes to us from across the 
ocean, setting before us the scenes that followed the re- 
cent departure from earth of one of England's most 
gifted minds, the critic humorist Thackeray, whose writ- 
ings have delighted both hemispheres, and whose words 
had such power — to use his own language of another — 
" to light up a rascal like a policeman's lantern." World- 
ly journalists could not but comment upon the change 
that passed over the scenes which he had made so at- 
tractive. Scarcely was the dwelling on which he had 
expended his taste, and which he had made so exquisitely 
inviting, complete, when its owner was called away, and 
in a few days more, those rooms in which he had spread 
around him the luxuries of thought, and in which he had 
enjoyed the pleasures of converse with the most gifted, 
and intellectual, were filled with a lot of customers, a 
motley group, which only his pen could describe — stran- 
gers to one another, shrewd, coarse-minded men, hanging 
on the auctioneer's hammer, anxious to pick up at the 
lowest price the best bargains, and handling with busi- 
ness coarseness what the author's mind had linked to 
precious or sacred memories. 

Looking at such scenes as these, recurring every day, 
who that asks — what is man ? — does not feel that if he is 



TEE VANITY OE LIFE. 27 

to judge him only by the show or pageant and its humili- 
ating sequel, he must concede that he is only the play- 
thing of chance, the bubble of time, the rocket of ambi- 
tion. Who is not ready to turn aside and exclaim with 
sadness, " and is this the sum, the scope, the goal of man's 
eager hope ? Does he shine for a moment only to give a 
meaning to the emblem of the glowworm spark ? Does 
he flourish for a moment, only to give the plucked and 
withering flower a deeper significance? Does he pass 
before our eyes and then vanish to be seen no more, only 
to humiliate his life by its contrast with that of the oak 
of centuries that spreads its broad arms over his grave, 
and survives every memorial of his crumbled dust ?" 

It is not strange that when a king of England with his 
barbarous chieftains were gathered to listen to the mes- 
sage of the first Christian missionary, who told them of 
the Great Father and the life eternal, one of the more 
serious, as a swallow entered the tent, flew about it and 
then sped away, should take up the parable and say — 
" Lo ! King ! a symbol of our life here ! We are like 
the swallow that enters the tent, flies about and then 
soars away we know not whither. If these men can tell 
us of our future, or throw light on the unexplored dark- 
ness, let us hear their words." Does any one listen to 
that barbarous yet thoughtful chieftain without feeling 
that the words find an echo in his own heart ? What is 
life ? what is its meaning ? Is the grave the final boun- 
dary, the goal of human hope ? Do you say yes ? What 
a mortifying littleness then there is about it! How 
humbling are its vicissitudes and changes ! How unsat- 
isfactory its highest honors, its amplest fortunes ! How 
the very height to which the boldest and strongest climb, 
is but the edge of the precipice — the Tarpeian rock — 



2 8 LIFE LESSONS. 

from which, they must inevitably plunge to a deeper and 
deeper oblivion ! 

The man who takes this view of life degrades his priv- 
ileges, degrades himself, and degrades God's purpose in 
his creation. Most appropriately may he say, let us eat 
and drink, for to-morrow we die, and so revel his few 
fleeting hours away — hours that have no more meaning, 
and will have no future resurrection for judgment, when 
once they are gone. Or still more appropriately, scorn- 
ing all that he sees as the pageant of an hour, and feel- 
ing that reason itself, setting forth his capacity and his 
doom, his power to soar and the grave to which he is 
chained, is but the expositor of his conscious misery, he 
may exclaim — " let me escape from this farce of existence 
and drown hope and disappointment alike in the stream 
of oblivion." 

But who can acquiesce in such a conclusion ? Who 
does not feel all the instincts of his being rising up to 
protest against it ? And who can take this view of life 
which the word of God reveals without feeling that that 
alone ennobles existence — that that alone is worthy the 
end which God had in view in creating man — that that 
alone gives dignity to the lowliest lot, and lifts man up to 
that platform of hope and effort and aspiration for which 
he was designed ? 

Then it is that we may hope to see realized what the 
seraphic Howe has so eloquently described — " That lofty 
soul that bears about with it the living apprehensions of 
its being made for an everlasting state, so earnestly in- 
tends it, that it shall even be a descent and vouchsafe- 
ment with it, if it allow itself to take notice what busy 
mortals are doing in their (as they reckon them) grand 
negotiations here below. . . . He hath still the image 



THE VANITY OF LIFE. 



29 



before his eye, of this world vanishing and passing away : 
of the other, with the everlasting affairs and concern- 
ments of it, even now ready to take place and fill up all 
the stage, and can represent to himself the vision (not 
from a melancholic fancy and crazed brain, but a rational 
faith and a sober well-instructed mind) of the world dis- 
solving, monarchies and kingdoms breaking up, thrones 
tumbling, crowns and sceptres lying as neglected things. 
He hath a telescope through which he can behold the 
glorious appearances of the Supreme Judge ; the solemn 
state of his majestic person ; the obsequious throng of 
glorious celestial creatures, doing homage to their eternal 
King, the swift flight of his royal guards, sent forth into 
the four winds to gather the elect — the universal silent 
attention — the judgment set, the books opened, the 
frightful, amazed looks of surprised wretches, the equal 
administration of the final judgment, the adjudication of 
all to their eternal state, the heavens rolled up as a scroll, 
the earth and all therein consumed and burnt up." 



IV. 



THE DIGNITY OP LIFE. 

"The glory which thou gavest me, I have given them." — John xvii. 22. 

np^HE vanity of man as mortal" is one thing, and 
JL his dignity as immortal is quite another. One 
is as the candlestick, the other is as the light set in it 
which gives it use and value. Oue is the perishing husk 
of the seed, the other is its living germ. One is the chaff 
and stubble, the other is the precious and garnered grain. 

Regard man's existence simply as bounded by the cra- 
dle and the grave, and wonderful as it is, it is still more 
pitiable. Its bloom is as the early cloud and the morn- 
ing dew. Its hopes are narrowed to the prospects of an 
uncertain to-morrow. Its soaring aspirations are chained 
down to the clod, or shut up like an eagle in a canary 
bird's cage. Make it gaudy as you will, and it is only 
like a garlanded victim, marching in pomp to the sacrifice. 
It is a magic lantern picture that vanishes forever when 
death puts out the light of genius and energy within. 

All the memorials that it can leave behind it are only 
like inscriptions traced on the sand that the rising tide 
will soon cover. The waves of oblivion are ever dashing 
their foam nearer and nearer. In a little while all will 
be buried or obliterated forever. How the great primae- 
val forests have been crushed down and compacted till 
in the coal mine of to-day you cannot discern limb or 
trunk, and only here and there is the imprint of the leaf 
that once spread out its gaudy beauty to the sun ! So it 
is with the generations of human genius. They overlie 

(30) 



THE DIGNITY OF LIFE. 3 1 

and crush one another, and the scholar, digging up the 
lessons of the past, is exploring fossils, is bringing up from 
unsunned depths what the world had forgotten. History- 
has not pens enough to record more than just the outlines 
of national progress or decay, and if she had, her memo- 
rials would be given over to cobwebs, dust, and worms. 

A great ship goes down on the ocean, and the waves 
roll on over it with unbroken sweep just as they did be- 
fore. So it is on the sea of time with the great and gay, 
the man-of-war and the pleasure yacht. What if here 
and there there are a few floating spars! They only 
inspire sadness. They are fragments that tell of ruin, 
soon to be beached on the lone desert shore. 

Looking at man as mortal, there are beasts that survive 
him, and whose long-lived existence makes more humilia- 
ting the span of his uncertain three- score years and ten. 
There are trees that his hand plants that continuing after 
he lias vanished, will perhaps be rooted and fed from the 
sod that covers his dust. His life is an apparition. His 
memory is the vanishing blaze of the meteor. 

And is this all for which man was designed ? Did He 
who placed him here and set him on the pinnacle of this 
lower world, only design him for the same doom with the 
clod he treads upon — only endow him so wondrously that 
he might see his vanity and feel his misery, and gaze 
down helpless into the gulf of annihilation that awaits 
him ? Did he fit up this globe with all that it contains, 
and make man the lord of it, only that he might more 
keenly feel what a mere straw is his broken sceptre, and 
how hollow is the homage that just furnishes him his 
funeral equipage as life itself becomes a march toward 
the grave ? Did he make each dying seed with its living 
germ an emblem of the resurrection, only to suggest hopes 



52 LIFE LESSONS. 

of immortality that are doomed to blight ? Did lie frame 
the plan of our life so that these years should become an 
education for a future we are never to know ? Did he 
set an intelligent soul in this exquisite mechanism of the 
body, as a mere engine to keep it in motion till it sinks 
with the worthless hulk to a common decay ? Did he 
endow it with faculties to look through nature up to 
nature's God, and with affections that can rejoice in His 
love and call him Father, only to leave it abandoned at 
last, a more than orphan outcast, only privileged to say 
to corruption " thou art my Father, and to the worm thou 
art my mother and my sister ?" 

Then indeed, human existence becomes a troubled 
dream, and all our inward agony of thought, our reproofs 
of conscience, our strivings and struggles after a higher 
life and a moral blessedness, are but a useless incubus of 
woe, a bitter nightmare for which the oblivion of the grave 
may be a welcome relief. Then does the globe itself be- 
come, instead of the perch from which we spread our wings 
for an immortal flight, the tomb of human aspiration, the 
slough of our despond in which hope sinks forever stifled. 

Then, as I walk the earth, it rings hollow to my tread, 
calling me down to its sunless realms. As I gaze on 
ruined desolation, it sympathizes with my woe. As I 
tread the empty halls where splendor revelled, the cheer- 
less echoes of my footstep are the funeral dirge that ac- 
companies my march to the tomb. The stars that look 
down upon me are the sentinels of my despair. History 
has no meaning. Probation and discipline, and retribu- 
tion are empty words. I am a floating atom drifting to 
oblivion. I am gifted with reason and consciousness 
only to read with keener sagacity and keener torture the 
humiliation and anguish of my final lot ? 



THE DIGNITY OF LIFE. 



33 



But is this the design of God ? Dare I impute such 
cruelty to his benevolence, such folly to his wisdom? 
Must I not feel that man is of higher destiny than the 
worm that crawls under his feet ? Must I not respect 
human life as I cannot that of the brute whose flesh feeds 
me, or the tree whose fuel warms me ? In a word, can I 
stop short of accounting man immortal, and recognizing in 
him one whom God deigns to own as a child ? 

" Shall man be left forgotten in the dust, 

When fate relenting bids the flower revive ? 
Shall Nature's voice, to man alone unjust, 

Bid him though doomed to perish, hope to live ? 
Is it for this fair virtue oft must strive 

With disappointment penury and pain ? 
No ! Heaven's immortal spring shall yet arrive, 

And man's majestic beauty bloom again 
Safe through the eternal year of love's triumphant reign." 

And now it is that I can recognize the dignity of man. 
I can discern the beautiful consistency, harmony and 
order of the divine plan that makes this life the seed- 
time of being, the germ of an immortal destiny. I do 
not need thrones and palaces or pompous pageant to con- 
fer distinction on the short-lived superiority of man to 
the brute. He is throned in his immortality. He is 
crowned by his destiny. His greatness is not measured 
by the toys and playthings of earthly ambition, by rank 
or title, or wealth or dominion. His own great "birth- 
right of immortality pours contempt on all other legacies. 
By the side of that which is common to all, the things in 
which men differ are of small account. Human life is 
sacred because it is God's allotment of a probation on 
which the issues of the life immortal are suspended. 
2* 



34 LIFE LESSONS. 

Man is great as man, not because he is in high station, 
not merely because he has powers that can study the uni- 
verse, and weigh the mountains in scales, and survey the 
heavens, and unfold their mechanism, but because these 
powers are destined to an infinite and eternal develop- 
ment, because God owns him as a child, because heaven 
may be his home. 

Now you may see what he is, and what homage is paid 
him, and how time and nature, and revelation, declare 
his greatness. Mark his capacity and discern what it 
really is, and what is its scope — not to build palaces or 
swift ships, to span rivers, to lay iron tracks, to tunnel 
mountains, to decipher the fossil rocks, to trace the pro- 
gress of art or pioneer its march, or classify the facts of 
history — not to unfold the mysteries of his own being, or 
analyze the operations of his own mind — but in doing all 
this to discipline his powers for a higher service, and by 
the consecration of all his aims make the ladder of human 
attainments, the ladder by which the soul mounts to a 
more comprehensive survey of the works and providence 
of God. He is great, not in the strength of affections 
that idolize child, or husband, or wife, or parent, or coun- 
try, and that welcome hardship and the risk of life to 
serve them, but in affections which cling to the Almighty 
Father and to a covenant God, and twine themselves with 
deathless tendrils to the props of the everlasting promise. 

Away then with all the baubles that amuse the fancy 
or minister to a shallow pride. Away with all distinc- 
tions that cover up the one grand distinction of man as 
the heir of immortality. Let rags and broadcloth be 
alike transparent that I may recognize the man — the 
heart beneath them all, that God will deign to make his 
living temple, and that shall ring with songs of deathless 




THE DIGNITY OF LIFE. 35 

praise when the last minster spire or cathedral dome is 
wrapt in the final flame. 

It is this recognition of man's immortality that justifies 
his position where God has placed him as the lord of 
this lower world. All things on earth are made for him. 
This globe is the stage on which he is nobly to act his 
part. All its changing phases are the revolving chart 
on which he is to study his Father's lessons. Its seeds 
and flowers and harvests, its clouds and sunshine, its 
mountains and valleys, its dawn and twilight, its silence 
and its song, its discord and its music, its rests and tem- 
pests are all of them emblems. He and he alone has a 
mind to read and a heart to feel them. How the great 
heavens seem to come down at his bidding to map them- 
selves on his eyeball I How the mountain ranges and 
the fossil strata keep back their secrets till he questions 
them ! How history unrolls its chart to his steady gaze 
till he sees in the light of revelation the grand outline of 
God's wonderful and eternal providence. How the dis- 
cipline of temptation and trial subdues his vain confi- 
dence, rasps away his follies, and perfects the jewel of 
his faith. How sun and stars to his thoughtful eye beam 
with a light which no prism can dissolve, and the shadows 
beneath which he walks, teach him to hold firmer by the 
word which is a lamp to his feet and a light to his path. 

It is to him, subordinate to God, that nature pays her 
homage. For him winds blow and waters roll. For 
him the mine has kept its treasures safe through uncounted 
ages. For him the earth is carpeted with verdure, and 
for him the forests and the harvests wave. The sea and 
land alike lay their treasures at his feet. Beast, bird 
and insect, defy one another, but yield to his control. 
Canvass and marble wait his touch to p4ow with some 



36 LIFE LESSONS. 

lofty ideal. Even the wilderness beckons him to its pos- 
session, and the ocean wave teaches him daring. Society 
itself is, normally, the school of affection and of virtue. 
The family is God's nursery for the young immortal. 
The state is the gymnasium of civil integrity, ordained 
of God to school men in the alphabet of that very justice, 
and order, and legislation, and retribution, which illus- 
trate his own moral and infinite government. 

But the revelation of Jesus Christ in declaring the 
dignity of human nature, even in spite of the apostacy 
and the unspeakable ruin that must finally overtake the 
perverted guilty soul, leaves all else behind. An impris- 
oned monarch may buy his ransom by ceded kingdoms. 
An Inca of Peru may seek to redeem himself from arrest 
by halls piled up with solid gold, but the blood that 
flowed on Calvary is more precious than mines or empires, 
and that blood was shed as a propitiation for our sins. 
This is the last, great, crowning gift of divine love, 
declaring in the preciousness of our ransom the dignity 
and value of the soul. 

Recognize then, your true, your real greatness, not 
that of beauty or wealth, or taste, or learning, or gifts ; 
not that of charities, or self-righteousness, or good deeds ; 
for in all these things, our highest attainments leave us 
whelmed in dust and humiliation — leave us only to reflect 
on the vanity of man as mortal — but consider your birth- 
right of immortality. Consider how God has put you 
here in training for the skies, how he seeks to reclaim 
you from all that is low, and sensual, and selfish, that he 
may lift you up to himself and teach you to set your 
affections on things above, that you may be, more than 
the heir of kings, more than the wielder of sceptres — • 
God's own child. 



THE COMPASS OF LIFE. 

"A conscience void of offense." — Acts xxiv. 16. 

OUR life on earth has been often compared to a 
vessel on the ocean. We are afloat on the waves 
of time, and if we ever reach the port of peace, it will be, 
as the vessel reaches the harbor, not by drifting, but by 
steering aright. 

But the emblem of the vessel is only too weak. We 
bear with us a treasure richer by far than the holds of 
famed India fleets or Spanish galleons. A human soul 
freighted with the hopes — the possibility of immortal 
blessedness, is such a prize for the great Infernal pri- 
vateer, as corsair or pirate never seized. Eich in facul- 
ties, affections, privileges, opportunities of sublime aim 
and virtuous effort, capable of doing and enduring and 
loving till its very presence is a joy and benediction, it 
would only be degrading it to class it with silver plate 
or California gold. It is sad enough to look at the 
skeleton frame of a noble vessel flung crushed upon the 
rocks, its timbers sinking to decay, the ooze and mud of 
the sea carpeting deck and state-room — but what is this 
to the sight of a soul flung wrecked and helpless on the 
rocks of eternal judgment, going down, amid the requiem 
of its own moans and anguish, to the deeps of gloom and 
darkness — the prey of desolation and utter despair ? 

And the dangers that threaten the human soul are paral- 

(37) 



3 8 LIFE LESSONS. 

leled by none which the sailor meets upon the sea. The 
records of probation would show a percentage of loss 
such as would force an underwriter to decline all risks 
of insurance. How few of life's voyagers reach the har- 
bor without loss and in triumph ! How many sink out- 
right — how many are left castaways as it were on the 
desert shore ! 

There must be something terrific in a storm at sea, — 
when the waves come rolling on like watery avalanches, 
and the oak-ribbed vessel quivers under the shock ; when 
the loud trumpet shout that should convey orders is 
drowned by the thunder's and the tempest's roar ; when 
the cordage snaps and the masts are swept by the board ! 
There is the great floating coffin that sinks in the trough 
of the sea as if it were a grave, and just beneath are 
those fathomless depths so deep that the light goes out 
as if in caverns, and there is no landmark, no beaten 
path, no glimmering lighthouse to guide the vessel's 
course. 

And yet there is another sea whose face is swept by 
fiercer tempests, whose deeps are more unfathomable, whose 
shores are all lined with broken spars, and whose bottom 
is covered with countless wrecks which no human eye 
may explore. To many it is one wide waste of waters, 
a scene of ever tossing agitation, tempestuous with tempta- 
tion, and its rock-bound shores stern as retribution wait 
to crush human hopes flung upon their mercy. Who can 
enter into that inward struggle through which the soul 
must pass to reach in triumph the peace of God, and see 
it whelmed beneath the waves, or striking on hidden 
rocks, or sinking visibly to the awful darkness beneath, 
and not feel that the perils of our life are not those of a 
Kane among Polar icebergs, or a Speke among barbarous 



THE COMPASS OF LIFE. 39 

African tribes, or a Sedgwick and Wadsworth under the 
battle-field's hail of death, but rather are to be found 
everywhere, where a human spirit quails before the 
tempter, or wavers in its allegiance to God ? 

If a painter with the most consummate art should draw 
you two scenes — one, that of a Columbus returning tri- 
umphant from his voyage of discovery, with the riches 
and treasures of a New World in the hold of his vessel, 
and the crowded docks alive with men shouting his wel- 
come home — the other, that of some foundering Arctic, 
going down with its freight of human life amid the rush 
of waves, the blaze of lightnings and the thunder of the 
storm, — the contrast would but symbolize the different 
fate of human beings, starting from the same harbor, 
with equal capabilities, with common hopes, and with 
the same favoring breeze. One passes away as it were 
in the triumph of a successful voyage, with words of lofty 
cheer in his feeblest whispers, while the port of rest 
greets and cheers his dying eye — the other sinks silent 
and hopeless beneath the waves and storms of life, leav- 
ing no memorial perhaps behind but the bubble of his 
parting breath. One stands on Pisgah conversing with 
angels. The feet of the other stumble on the dark moun- 
tains. One leaves behind him such memories of good- 
ness as make every place of his earthly sojourn fragrant 
for generations — the other is thought of only as a Pilate, 
a Gallio, or a Demas. 

What makes this difference? Why does the world 
never weary to hear of Mount Vernon, the tomb of Wash- 
ington ? Why does the latest generation keep still well- 
worn the path by which for centuries the noblest of earth 
have hasted to lay the freshest flowers on the graves of 
the martyrs ; while of one of the very ablest of England's 



4 o LIFE LESSONS. 

gifted statesmen (Walpole) the historian has been con- 
strained to say, " Eo enthusiasm was ever felt for his per- 
son ; none was ever kindled by his memory. Iso man ever 
inquired where his remains are laid, or went to pay an 
homage of reverence to his tomb." The explanation is 
not far to seek. In one case duty ruled ; in the other only 
a selfish ambition, so inherently mean, that no poet's 
strains could ennoble it, and no stars or ribbons blazon 
over its infamy. I do not wonder, in view of the con- 
trast between the soul walking the earth but treading on 
it with the high resolve of duty, and the soul mining 
mole-like among the low elements which are given up 
to clods and worms, that the poet Wordsworth should 
apostrophize that by which alone life can be redeemed 
from contempt : 

" Stern daughter of the voice of God, 

duty, if that name thou love, 
Who art a light to guide, a rod 

To check the erring and reprove ; 
Thou who art victory and law 
When earthly terrors overawe ; 
Give unto me, made lowly wise, 
The spirit of self-sacrifice." 

Who would not respond, "Amen ?" Who would not say, 
let duty be to me 

" victory and law 
Whem earthly terrors overawe." 

Suppose a native of some heathen land should ap- 
proach the pilot of a vessel in a dark and stormy night, 
and see him often turning to gaze upon a glass-covered 
box, within which a long iron needle is poised! He 



THE COMPASS OF LIFE. 41 

knows not what it is, and he cannot understand this fre- 
quent gaze. He inquires, and is told that under all 
changes, in every sea, and in every latitude, that iron 
needle will still point unwavering to the pole. When 
the darkness sets all human calculations at defiance, and 
the keenest sagacity cannot even guess whitherward the 
vessel moves, that little piece of senseless metal knows 
more than pilot, crew, and royal and scientific societies. 

" How wonderful," perhaps he replies ; " but is it ab- 
solutely infallible?" Why, no! Another piece of iron 
laid alongside of it, which the heedless observer might 
not detect, would turn it out of its course, and make it 
utterly untrustworthy. It might only mislead. It might 
just excite confidence only to betray it. And yet we do 
not throw it away. It is something above and beyond 
all reason and all calculation. Without it the sailor would 
be lost in the darkness. The clouds would spread like a 
pall over his vessel. But with the compass — satisfied that 
no unwarranted attraction draws it aside — he steers on 
by night and by day, in storm and sunshine, and feels 
assured that all is right. 

Well, conscience is the soul's compass. On our vogage 
it points steadily to the pole of truth. It is not indeed 
infallible. It may be drawn aside from its true direc- 
tion. Persecutors have dipped their hands in innocent 
blood and thought they did God service. Men making 
gain by mean or mischievous pursuits have warped their 
conscience round into line with their business. Many a 
crime, many a strange fanaticism has pleaded conscience. 
Men have engaged in the slave trade and persuaded 
themselves that they were carrying out the designs of 
the Almighty. But in every such case the conscience 
was not void of offence. It was affected by adverse in- 



42 LIFE LESSON'S. 



lin. 



fluences, by self-interest, the love of pleasure or gain. 
The purse, with its metal contents perhaps, was too near 
this needle of the soul. 

But he that would be safe at last must regard it. He 
must steer his course by the intimations which it gives. 
It is possible that ships abandoned by polar navigators 
should drift down to some southern coast and be again 
recovered, but he who drifts on the sea of life is lost be- 
yond all recovery. And what is a career of pleasure but 
drifting with the breath of jesting and amusement, and 
what is a career of selfishness, but scudding without a 
helmsman before the blasts of passion and interest ? 
Does any man imagine that thus he will ever reach the 
port? 

Nt>, he needs the compass, he needs it free from all 
disturbing influences, he needs to study and heed its 
pointing finger, and steer as it directs. Unless he does, 
he is lost. The man without a conscience, if such a thing 
could be, would be the greatest wretch on earth — the 
most amazing object of pity, and is he less so, who, with 
a conscience, heeds it not, or allows it to be subjected to 
influences that pervert it ? 

And yet what is any continuous course of evil but a 
steady, systematic perversion and offending of the con- 
science ? It is like a straining of the eye till the power 
of vision is lost. It is a tampering with those convic- 
tions of duty by which the soul is held back as by a cable 
from the maelstrom of perdition. 

What would you think of a man who on board a vessel 
should tamper with the compass, should allow scraps of 
iron to be left near it, and then throw some covering over 
them, that they might not be seen ? He would imperil 
the vessel and its cargo, his own life and the life of all 



THE COMPASS OF LIFE. 



43 



on board. And yet this is what that man does who al- 
lows his conscience to be perverted, who brings his purse 
or his business or his pleasure so near to it as to draw 
it from its true line. He imperils his soul with all its 
precious interests. He imperils his everlasting inher- 
itance and the welfare of all that are associated with 
him or are influenced by his example. 

Or what would you think of a man who should throw 
the compass overboard, and should choose to be drifted 
with the winds and currents whithersoever they might 
bear him, to strange seas or to hidden rocks. And yet 
this is no more than what that man does who throws 
conscience overboard, and allows himself to drift on the 
current of pleasure or be driven by the blasts of passion 
or interest. He is afloat on a stormy sea, and he will 
never reach the port. "We need no spirit of prophecy 
to be assured that his life will be a tragedy, and that 
ere long he will become a sunk or stranded wreck. 

Above all things, then, tamper not with the con- 
science. Never allow it to be warped by unhallowed 
influences. A little thing, like a mote in the eye, may 
irritate, if not injure, it irreparably. One great attain- 
ment of Probation is a properly educated conscience. It 
is the monitor of duty ; it is that which echoes in the 
soul the voice of its Maker. If it speaks doubtfully, if 
you have stifled its utterance, if you have perverted it 
from its true direction and scope, then you are risking 
the results of life on a false compass — false through your 
complicity, or by your own act. 






VI. 

DUTY — THE LAW OF LIFE. 

" These things ought ye to have done." — Matt, xxiii. 23. 

THE word ought implies duty. Is there such a thing 
as duty ? Is there any thing that should have con- 
trol of a man above his own personal interest — above his 
pleasures and his tastes ? 

Thousands live as if they fully believed there was not. 
They are governed by self-interest. The great question 
with them — the maelstrom that swallows up everything 
else — is, What will contribute to my gain, to my 
pleasure ? The world they live in, and the world they 
live for, centers in self. Their morality — if they are 
moral — is a matter of education or taste. Not to be 
honest would be a loss of reputation or standing. Not 
to be sober would risk health and success in business. All 
their virtue is simply natural amiability, or a matter of 
habit or calculation. 

Such men often go through the world with a fair repu- 
tation, and do some good on their way — good, however, 
not of the kind that springs from design, or holy purpose, 
but good like that of a wheel in a piece of mechanism — for 
God's providence, without reference to their own plan, 
makes them wheels in the social organism. Sheltered 
by honorable associations, the tornado of temptation 
spares them. They stand visibly upright to the last» 

(44) 



DUTY— THE LAW OF LIFE. 



45 



and no stain attaches to their names. But have they 
answered the end of life? Have they been governed 
by right motives ? Have they built on the rock, or on 
the sand ? 

Sometimes they give back an answer themselves which 
contradicts their life. Sometimes, as remorse coils its 
folds about their sinking frame, they confess with in- 
ward agony that they have committed a great and life- 
long mistake. They spurn as mockery the soothing 
flattery that they have been upright and moral. The 
memory of their self-indulgence is to them like the 
" hand-writing on the wall." They see nothing high or 
noble or pure to redeem their life from the blight of a 
wasted probation. 

And yet men will say, If I interfere with no man's 
rights, may I not consult my own convenience or pleasure? 
May I not do what I will with my talents, my time, my 
wealth ? What good will it do me to be a hermit, or 
an ascetic, to crucify ease or comfort or taste by self- 
denial ? 

Well, let us suppose that a man need recognize no law 
above his own convenience or interest. What one may 
do, all may do. Duty is dispensed with. No man asks, 
What ought I to do ? There is no ought in the case. 
Every man's interest, taste, or pleasure is his rule. What 
follows ? What is the result in the family, in society, in 
the state? You have dissolved the whole framework 
of social order. The parent neglects the child, and the 
child disobeys the parent. Every brother is a Cain, 
every mother is an Herodias, every neighbor is an Ish- 
mael. Will you remonstrate against this ? How can 
you do it ? You must appeal to that obsolete principle 
of duty. You must recognize the fact that we are not 



46 LIFE LESSONS. 

independent of one another — that we owe to one another, 
without respect to what we receive, love and service. 

Introduce the principle into the State. It repeals every 
law, for civil legislation is swallowed up by individual 
caprice. It reduces social order to chaos. It inaugurates 
anarchy and revolution and endless civil feuds. It sanc- 
tions tyranny, and theft, and murder, and the will of the 
strongest. Ambition, avarice, and revenge abolish courts, 
and bludgeons and pistols take the place of sheriffs. 
And what becomes of patriotism? The State cannot 
claim that a man should forego ease or personal gain, to 
serve either in its councils or in its armies. 

But this is not all. If there is no such thing as duty, 
no promise is binding, no oath is inviolable. Why should 
a man observe truth or justice if there is no such thing 
as moral obligation independent of taste or interest? 
And without truth between man and man, where is so- 
ciety, where is the State? The drifting sand, every 
grain independent of its fellow, is cohesion and solidity 
itself, to a system in which every ruler is a Nero, and 
every subject an Ishmael. 

Yet all this flows forth as the legitimate result when 
you dispense with the cement and the authority of duty. 
The veriest despotism that barbarism ever constructed 
could not hold together an hour without some respect 
for the obligations of duty. The Dey of Algiers, or 
even the King of Dahomey, is forced, in spite of the 
fiendliest passions, sometimes, at least, to keep his promise, 
to fulfill his engagements. 

There is, then, such a thing as duty. There is some- 
thing which claims the right to govern a man, above his 
own taste, or caprice, or interests. Nay, his own nature, 
seared and flawed by sin till it threatens to crumble to 



DUTY— THE LAW OF LIFE. 



47 



absolute corruption, is still — like the rock interfused with 
silver — veined with conscience. In spite of the most 
confirmed and desperate depravity, the soul bows uncon- 
sciously before the majesty of the truth it hates, and 
Felix trembles at the look of his prisoner, even while his 
words mingle their tones with the clanking of his chain. 
If you examine piecemeal a steam-engine, in its opera- 
tions, you come to what is called the governor, which is 
designed to regulate the engine in all its motions. You 
have no more doubt of its design than you have of the 
existence of the engine itself. So if you take the hu- 
man mind to pieces you find that this — infinitely more 
curious and complicate than any structure that human 
genius ever contrived — has its governor also. It has 
that which assumes to guide, and judge, and control 
all a man's actions — that which grasps the helm 
of the mind as unhesitatingly and boldly as the 
captain of a vessel directs how it shall be trimmed — 
issues its orders, as it were in conscious mastery — looks 
the soul in the face when it yields to low, base self- 
interest, and says : " You mean, dastardly wretch ! blush 
to hold up your head among decent men." That gov- 
ernor is the human conscience. A man may not like its 
control or company. He may abuse it, and violate it, and 
spurn it, and stupify it with vice and drunkenness ; he 
may put it under the heel of his lusts, and bore out its 
eyes with sophistry, and smother its voice with the loud 
tones of revel ; — but, torn, bleeding, dishonored, gasp- 
ing in whispers — it lives yet, and it claims its rightful 
throne, and it maintains still the tone of a king ; and 
sometimes it flings off all the murderous lusts that 
trampled on it, and rises up like a giant to reassert its 
control over a wrecked and trembling; nature. It can 



48 LIFE LESSONS. 

not be destroyed. It can not be exiled. To the very 
last, when the flesh crumbles, and the limbs shake with 
weakness, and reason itself is ready to give way, con- 
science speaks in the soul with a voice as much more 
authoritative than all other voices, as God's thunders are 
louder than human revels. 

And whence is conscience ? Is it an accident ? Was 
it dropped in as a fragment to fill up the seams or round 
out the intellectual or social nature of man ? Nay ; is it 
not the very substance of our moral nature, and does it 
not bear as plainly the stamp of design as the governor 
in a steam-engine? And was it not put there by the 
great Builder, and does not its very presence declare 
louder and plainer than words, that man, in all his facul- 
ties, tastes, sympathies, and purposes, is to yield to its 
control? It is the constitutional sovereign of the empire 
of our faculties. To disregard it, is treason ; to disobey it, 
is rebellion. To set up pleasure, or convenience, or gain, 
or personal or selfish interest, in place of it, is to dethrone 
the rightful monarch ; it is, as it were, to release Barab- 
bas and crucify Jesus. 

Man, then, is made under law ; he is created subject to 
the law of duty. That law is supreme. It is as much 
above lust, passion, and interest as the laws of the United 
States are above the resolutions of a caucus of secession- 
ists — as the laws of Sinai are above the rules of etiquette 
at Belshazzar's revels or Dives's feasts. 

If any man could yet doubt it, he would only need to 
compare the results of a life of duty with a life of pleasure 
— the lofty heroism of a Daniel faithful to his God amid 
all the allurements of a heathen court, with the selfish 
aspirations of a Hainan climbing up to swing from his 
own gallows — the sublime fidelity of a Washington to 



DUTY— THE LAW OF LIFE. 49 

the sacred trust his country reposed in him, with the 
baseness of an Arnold selling himself to a golden infamy 
— the truthfulness of unswerving integrity under whose 
shadow the wronged finds shelter and the wretched pity, 
with the trifling, vain, heedless indulgence that degrades 
a man to the level of a peacock or a swine. Placed side 
by side, even a fool might be struck by the contrast. 
One is sunlight, the other fog ; one is the fragrance of 
Eden, the other a stench. The study of one inspires and 
thrills us beyond the note of drum or trumpet or martial 
strain j the sight of the other makes us sick of human 
nature. We turn away as from a slough of filth and 
loathing. Yet one is duty incarnate, the other selfish- 
ness gone to seed. 

The great question, then, which is to determine the 
plan and destiny of a man's life is this : Shall I yield to 
the supreme law of duty ? Shall I bow to the mandate 
of conscience, and of God speaking through the con- 
science ? Shall I put base or selfish interest foremost, or 
shall I simply ask, " What ought I to do," and make the 
answer final ? 

On that decision depends more than pen can write or 
tongue can tell. On that hinge the results of probation 
and the issues of eternity. By that is to be determined 
whether these years shall be carved into the statuary of 
noble and godly deeds, or whether they shall be ground 
down to the sandy rubbish with which Satan strews the 
pathway of blinded thousands to hell — whether your 
example shall be a moral lighthouse which the storm- 
tossed shall see and bless, or a rocket, whose charred 
remnant shall be trod under the heel of contempt, even 
by its once admirers — whether you will mount upward 
or sink downward — soar or crawl — be Godlike or beast- 
3 



5 o LIFE LESSON'S. 

like — be the world's benefactor or its curse — grow up 
to the stature of a sanctified manhood or be dwarfed and 
shriveled to the littleness of base and selfish aims. 

Can any man hesitate with such a choice before him ? 
He might almost as well hesitate between an angel's 
crown and a felon's cell, between the benediction of 
Heaven and the agonies of despair. 

And now the question meets him, What is duty ? It 
is not a difficult one to him who is ready to deny himself 
and take up his cross — to one who has made up his mind 
fully to shrink from no task which he ought to meet — 
to him who stands resolved to thread every deed and 
thought on the string of right. Such a man will soon 
find that all authority centers in the will of God, that 
morality has its true and eternal basis in religion, that 
he cannot begin his course without first asking, What do 
I owe to that great Being in whose hand my breath is, 
and whose are all my ways ? And he cannot long con- 
sider this without being brought to feel how grossly he 
has sinned already, and how much he needs the pardon- 
ing love and grace of God. 

And then may he find in the volume of God's revealed 
will a release from all his difficulties, and a solution of 
all his doubts. He will find provision made for all his 
need. The path of duty will open before him, and he 
will see that its very starting-point is just where the 
penitent sinner bows in humble confession before the 
cross of Christ. 



VII. 

LIFE SERVICE DUE TO GOD. 

"Will a man rob God?" — Mal. iii. 8. 

AS morality — in a general sense — is duty toward 
man, so religion is duty toward God. Both are 
demanded of us, and we cannot be just if we deny the 
claims of either. If we allow one and refuse the other, 
we stand condemned by our own act. We are inconsis- 
tent with ourselves. 

And yet there are thousands who claim — and perhaps 
justly, as they understand it — to be upright and moral, 
whose religion is but a form and many times a mockery. 
They are honest with men — as they measure obligation. 
They are dishonest toward God. If they admit that they 
ought to obey and serve and love their Maker, it is an 
admission that dies on the lip and never affects the heart. 
With little or no anxiety they tread their own convic- 
tions under foot ; they press on in a course which their 
consciences condemn, and which conflicts with all the 
principles which they avow or even cherish in social 
intercourse. 

Such is the career of thousands and tens of thousands. 
They palliate it. They excuse it. They offset it by an 
array of their own virtues, their integrity or morality. 
But what is its character ? What is the proper name 
for it ? It is robbery — robbing God. 

But "will a man rob God?" There is something 
atrocious in the very thought ! To rob a stranger is 

(51) 



5 2 LIFE LESSONS. 

criminal, and the law of the land reprobates it. To rob 
a neighbor is more repulsive. To rob a friend, one who 
has done us kindly offices, is still more heinous. To rob 
a parent is accounted the height of baseness as well as 
guilt — but to rob God, who is not only our great heavenly 
Friend, our Ruler, our Maker, but our Father in heaven, 
infinitely transcends it all. 

But can the charge be brought home to us ? Is it 
true ? What is the verdict of every unbiassed conscience 
in view of the evidence ? Let us see. 

And first, can a man rob G-od ? The whole universe 
is his, and man is his creature. You may say that he 
can carry nothing off the premises, and it is true. But 
can there be no robbery save that which succeeds ? The 
owner of property sits unseen by the intruder, sees him 
enter and seize his plunder, is ready to recover it again 
at the proper moment, or perhaps knows that the rob- 
ber is too weak to carry it off, will in fact drop exhaust- 
ed and helpless in the attempt. But is the deed any 
the less a crime for all this ? So God's eye is on the 
culprit. He sees not only the outstretched arm, but also 
the very thoughts of the soul. He can resume anything 
that guilty man may choose to appropriate just when he 
will ■ nay, he knows that life itself, like a palsied hand, 
must soon sink too enfeebled to grasp or retain its prize. 
But the spirit of the deed yet remains. If not successful, 
it is yet robbery. 

But God has so made man as a free and accounta- 
ble agent that he can at will retain and withhold what 
is due to God as his in right and justice. He is put in 
trust with that which belongs to God, and is justly to 
be rendered back to him — which cannot be withheld from 
him or his service without great guilt. 



I 



LIFE SERVICE TO GOB. 



53 



Man is God's creature, his intelligent creature, capable 
of studying, and by instruction of understanding the end 
of his being, aud devoting himself toward its attainment. 
God has a supreme right to demand of every man that 
he shall enter into the divine design and co-operate 
heartily and steadily in carrying it out, and to withhold 
that devotion or co-operation is to rob him of the duty 
which an intelligent creature owes. 

Man is God's subject, made under law, born under au- 
thority, bound to obey and to render every duty of loy- 
alty and fidelity. He can rebel in spirit and purpose, 
and refuse obedience, and withhold loyalty. And what 
a robbery is this ! Ask the statesman or patriot. How 
can a value be fixed on that of which it is said " to obey is 
better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of 
rams." 

Man is God's child, and owes him a child's duty of 
love and affection. That love and affection belong to 
God. They are his by right. No one can be justified — 
can justify himself in withholding them. And what is 
their worth? Love is the treasure of the heart: it is 
that which we prize the most. It is that on which God 
sets the highest estimate. A man might steal your purse 
or rob your dwelling, and you might perhaps forgive 
him, but suppose he stole away the affections of husband, 
wife or child, would you not feel that the robbery was 
one which no gold could compensate ? Would you not 
say that this was the very height and atrocity of rob- 
bery ? And what in the sight of Him who owns creation 
and can make millions of worlds at a breath, are all the 
treasures of mines and kingdoms, to the love and affec- 
tion of one who can say — "My Father God?" That 
little prattler on your knee cannot think as you think,. 



54 LIFE LESSONS. 

cannot speak as you speak, cannot earn a penny to add 
to your store, but its smile is the sunshine of your home, 
and how much you should prize its unbought kiss you 
may never know perhaps, unless called to look at death's 
seal on its marble brow and its closed eyelids. Ah ! 
what a robbery, when God, with a God's authority and 
a parent's affection, says to his wayward child, my son 
give me thy heart, and the heart is denied ! 

God rightly claims your influence and example on his 
side. There is a controversy going on between sin and 
holiness, and he that is not with him is against him. The 
worldly wealth you may have to give to promote the 
spread of Christ's kingdom may be small, but a conse- 
crated life he has a right to claim — a life of prayer, a 
life that commends religion to others, a life that tends to 
check the tide of overwhelming- sin, and draw lost men 
to the cross of Christ. Here is something that you 
either give or withhold. If you withhold it, then you 
rob God. 

God rightly claims the service of your hands — the 
consecration of all the fruits of your toil. These belong 
to him as the great proprietor, and you are but his stew- 
ard. Some men make an unwarranted distinction be- 
tween what they use for themselves and what they give 
away in charity. But God recognises no such distinc- 
tion. What you expend for your own comfort you are 
to expend for him and his glory, as well as what you 
give to spread the Gospel. God entrusts his own wealth 
to you for both, to use in either case for him. His wealth 
furnishes that garment. His wealth spreads that table. 
Do you recognize it as his ? Is it consecrated ? is it all 
consecrated ? Do you read the image of God as well as 
of the goddess Liberty on the coin — the image of Jesus 



LIFE SERVICE TO GOD. 55 

overspreading that of the President or the Secretary of 
the Treasury ? Or like Ananias and Sapphira, are you 
keeping back from God a part of what you acknowledge 
to be his ? If so you are robbing God. 

God rightly claims the service of your intellect. His 
name as owner is stamped on your every faculty, more 
than burnt or branded in. He is its absolute proprietor. 
Has it been devoted to his service ? Has it been enlisted 
in his army ? Has it taken the oath of allegiance ? Do 
you think, plan, purpose for the glory of God ? 

And if there is anything which is God's beyond dis- 
pute, it is these hours of probation. Every year, day, 
hour, moment, belongs to God. Have you given them to 
him — not only the Sabbath, not only the hour of prayer, 
of consecrated thought and meditation, but each moment 
— have you given it back with holy service ; have you used 
it as not your own, but entrusted to you that you might 
do the work of life, might prepare for eternity, might, 
lay up treasure in heaven ? 

If in any of these respects you have failed, then you 
have robbed God — robbed him not as a clerk robs his 
employer of money — not as a traitor robs his country of 
loyalty — not as a child robs a parent of the love and 
affection it owes — but you have as it were robbed him 
of his own glory, you have lived as if He were such a 
being that he could claim nothing at your hands, and 
was only to be — if not simply dreaded — neglected and 
despised. The evidence is full and complete. It is writ- 
ten on the memory. It is traced on the conscience. It 
is recorded in the book of Omniscience. The stolen 
property is perhaps in your hands, or your spendthrift 
policy has not pawned it beyond recall as a witness 
against you. 



5 6 LIFE LESSONS. 

What will you do ? Confess your sin. Look at it in 
its full enormity. See yourself at the mercy of an 
offended God. Confess your guilt at His bar. Select 
Christ as your advocate, and then plead the merits of 
atoning blood. 

But is there nothing, hitherto withheld, that is to be 
rendered back to God ? Has he not a right to say — 
" My son, give me thy heart ?" Can you evade the force 
of that appeal — " if then I be a father, where is my honor ? 
and if I be a master, where is my fear V God is en- 
titled, as God, to your supreme love and your cheerful 
service. Will you withhold them ? And what is that 
but robbery ? 



" My Maker and my King, 
To thee my all I owe ; 
Thy sovereign bounty is the spring 
Whence all my comforts flow. 

" Shall I withhold thy due ? 
And shall my passions rove? 
Lord, form this wretched heart anew, 
And fill it with thy love." 






VIII. 

LIVING FOB OTHERS. 

" Bear ye one another's burdens." — Gal. vi. 2. 

BY the very constitution of society, as well as that of 
our own being, we are placed under obligation to 
seek and promote the welfare of others. Out of the cir- 
cumstances of our mutual relations, the sense of duty is 
necessarily evolved. These circumstances are not of our 
ordering. They are due to the design of the great 
Maker himself, who has ordered our lot. Rightly read 
by the thoughtful mind, they sustain by their analogy the 
natural authority of those divine injunctions which re- 
quire us to " deny ourselves," to " bear one another's 
burdens,' 7 to be " our brother's keeper," and, in a word, 
to discharge those missionary obligations, so often 
branded as fanatic, which the Gospel of Christ enforces 
upon us. 

Some beams of this great truth evidently dawned, be- 
fore the advent of Christ, on the heathen mind. It is 
significant that Cicero should write a treatise de officiis, 
and bring to view the mutual obligations of men and 
citizens — that he should say so emphatically that "the 
true, the simple, the sincere was that which was most 
suited to the nature of man," * that self-interest should 
yield to justice, that we are not born for ourselves alone. 

* Quod verum, simplex sincerumque sit, id esse naturae hominis aptis 
si mum. 

3* W) 



58 



LIFE LE880NS. 



Such conclusions may have been drawn simply from 
the study of the constitution of man, or the constitution 
of society. But. whether the fact is recognized or not, 
these have God for their author, and the wise study of 
them reveals His design, and lends His sanction to the 
obligations that had, perhaps, been already inferred. 
The relations of parent and child, of ruler and subject, 
and, indeed, all those which grow out of our social exis- 
tence, must be referred to Him. Our well-being is iden- 
tified with the proper discharge of duties which we owe 
to others. 

This does not happen by chance. It is not a mere in- 
cident of our probation. Created as we are, social be- 
ings, our own natures could not be developed, except 
through intercourse with our fellow-beings. Nor. is it 
left to our choice whether this shall be the case. We 
could not change the order of things if we would. So- 
ciety is constituted into families, neighborhoods and 
states. The family is the school in which first of all the 
race is trained. Each helps to educate the other. The 
child educates the parent as really as the parent does 
the child. A new order of affections, anxieties and ef- 
forts is called forth by the necessary discharge of pa- 
rental duty, and many a virtue is evoked by the discharge 
of parental fidelity in protecting, guarding and educating 
the child. 

First of all there is forethought for those who are en- 
tirely and absolutely dependent. The infant, unable to 
tell its wants, or even to know them itself, silently ap- 
peals for help and kindness and care. It is an appeal 
which no parent can resist. It comes with a kind of di- 
vine authority. In yielding to it, the parent is compelled 
to consider what is adapted to the circumstances of the 



LIVING FOR OTHERS. 



59 



child, to observe its varied wants and exposure, to study 
what is adapted to its bodily comfort and mental im- 
provement, to train and educate it for future usefulness 
and to take care of itself. 

Nor is this all. Each member of the household must 
be thoughtful for the welfare of others. This is the ne- 
cessary law of the well-ordered and happy household. 
An exclusive selfishness is intolerable. It would turn 
the domestic scene into a theatre of hostile and war- 
ring passions. Perverted as humanity is, the family 
is the school in which we are placed first of all — placed 
by God — to unlearn the depravity of our selfishness, 
and make it part of our life to take forethought for 
others. 

Turning now to society at large, we find that for our 
own good we must toil and care for one another. So- 
ciety itself is a mutual league of help. There is no 
formal or expressed, but there is an understood alliance. 
We work, plan, invent, not for ourselves alone, but for 
one another. Others share the benefit of our industry 
and virtue, and we share the benefit of theirs. Life it- 
self is valuable or worthless, a joy or a burden, largely 
in proportion as we have around us those whom we love 
or whom we distrust. By society we are educated to 
that which we call public spirit, that is, a disposition 
which rises above considerations of narrow, private in- 
terest. Let society become organized, as it must be, 
into the form of government, and every citizen is trained 
to consider the claims of the state, or, as it is called, the 
commonwealth. By the very vote we are called upon to 
give, we are educated to think of the whole social body 
and what will be for their benefit. 

Nor is this all. Government represents the national 



66 LIFE LESSONS. 

mind, studious not for the profit of those who compose 
the administration, but of those who compose the state. 
It has to consider the wants, the exposure, the burdens, 
the defence, the prosperity of all. So in the neighbor- 
hood. Even our own peace, and prosperity, and security 
are the motive if all others are wanting, to study the in- 
telligence, morality and well-being of others. We want 
them educated and we build schools for them. We want 
them reformed, and we build penitentiaries and houses 
of refuge. We want them brought under religious re- 
straint, and we form bible and tract societies to furnish 
them religious reading, or build houses of worship in 
which they may be taught of God. 

And these social and civil duties are such that we neg- 
lect them at our peril. If we selfishly abandon all con- 
sideration for others, if we concentrate all care and 
anxiety on our own aggrandizement or emolument, we 
take the surest way to destroy our own security and com- 
fort. If we, in our avarice or selfishness, leave others to 
grow up ignorant or vicious — if we leave them uncared 
for in their vagrancy or vice — if we withhold the means 
needed for their reform, we educate society itself to be- 
come a den of human wolves — we leave it to sink to a 
level with the revolting order or rather anarchy of sav- 
age life. All the forms of wickedness that fester in the 
lanes and alleys of great cities till they breed a moral 
pestilence — all the crimes that, nursed in moral neglect 
and social corruption, at length stalk forth infernal Nim- 
rods, to rule and ruin, and trample on those who did not 
trample them out by kindness at the opportune moment 
— all these are the penalty for remissness in social duty 
and social virtue. 

Again, the most attractive forms of human excellence 



LIVING FOR OTHERS. 61 

are those which are produced from the soil of our social 
relations. Man is never so admirable as. when he for- 
gets himself to bless others. There are no deeds that 
so kindle the heart to admiration and enthusiastic praise 
as those in which we bear others' burdens, or volunteer 
to suffer and endure in their behalf. It half redeems 
from rebuke the vices of the savage parent, when we see 
him risking his own life to save that of the child, and 
who can read without tears of sympathy of those strug- 
gles of honest poverty by which the self-denying parent 
endeavors to clothe, and feed, and educate a child? 
Those sleepless nights, those tiresome days, those anxious 
hours, those welcomed hardships — adding new wrinkles 
to the brow, and bending the frame with other burdens 
than those of age — these mark a heroism, hidden indeed 
from the eyes of the great crowd, but not less noble, gen- 
erous, or admirable than that which on battlefields wins 
the plaudits of the world. 

And what is the charm that invests the annals of 
philanthropy but just that cheerful charity which fore- 
goes ease, and gain, and selfish advantage, to promote 
the comfort and welfare of those who have no legal claim 
to such service? The deeds which redeem from con- 
tempt the broad desert of selfishness which constitutes 
the waste of human history, are those in which generous 
spirits, postponing all selfish considerations, have la- 
bored, suffered, endured hardship, or peril, or death for- 
others. The world may not be commercially richer for 
the search for Sir John Franklin. Its map may not have 
been much altered by the generous valor of a Wilken- 
reid or Tell, and many a patriot and many a martyr may 
have fallen without seeing the cause consecrated by their 
blood triumphant. But we, at least, socially, morally, 



62 LIFE LESSONS. 

spiritually, are the richer for them, and the portrait gal- 
lery of history holds upon its walls, bidding them gaze 
down upon us from the canvass, features that impress 
themselves upon our remembrance, and which force us 
to aspire to a loftier standard of thought and en- 
deavor. 

Even war, with all its stern, forbidding aspects — war 
that is wont, like the fabled G-orgon's head, to change 
the hearts of those that long gaze upon it into stone, finds 
here almost its only redeeming features. "When men 
forget themselves for their country's sake, and for the 
love of others breast the surging tide of battle, and risk 
life and everything on earth at the call of patriotic duty, 
it is impossible for us not to admire and praise. Such 
deeds rise like the Alps above the lowlands and quag- 
mires of selfishness, and cold and dead must that heart 
be which does not gaze up to them with the awe and 
reverence due to moral greatness. 

Thus it will be found that in all the deeds or courses 
of action which most constrain to admiration, the real 
element that commands homage is the forgetfulness of 
self in order to promote the well-being of others. He 
that takes forethought for those who cannot or do not 
take forethought for themselves, for the widow and or- 
phan, or even for the depraved and vicious, is the moral 
hero. And yet without going out of our way we may 
find in our own homes, neighborhoods, communities, those 
who challenge our sympathy and care. God's providence, 
therefore, sets before us in nature the very lessons of His 
word of grace, teaches us to bear one another's burdens, 
incites us to self-sacrifice to promote their well-being, 
calls upon us as we have freely received freely to give, 
urges us to look not every man on his own things, but 



LIVING FOR OTHERS. 63 

every man also on the things of others, echoes in our 
ears the great lesson — no man, no true man, liveth to 
himself, and no man dieth to himself. 

To the disciple of Christ I need not say, your Master's 
example rebukes once and for ever everything like an 
absorbing selfishness. He went about doing good. Your 
business is to follow in His footsteps. You have no right 
to think only of your own ease and comfort. God is 
educating you every day by the lessons of your probation 
to care for the well-being and blessedness of others. 
While you are pleading to yourself your own ease or 
comfort, while you are careless whether your example 
cheers and encourages your Christian brethren, whether 
they find you at, or absent from, your post, you are vio- 
lating not only the solemn injunctions of your Master, 
but the very laws of the social constitution enacted by 
the Author of nature itself. 

But can it be a duty to study the social and moral wel- 
fare of others, and not their spiritual good ? Would you 
consider it a criminal neglect in a parent to clothe and 
feed his child, yet leave his mind untaught and his heart 
untrained ? Does that deserve the name of education which 
leaves uncared for all which constitutes man human and 
immortal ? Am I taking true forethought for one whom 
I send on a distant journey where he will be exposed to 
damp and cold, if I just furnish him with an umbrella to 
shield him from the present rays of a scorching sun? 
Surely, in truthful fidelity I must consider what he needs 
most, what he will need. And what does man need 
most? What do you need yourself? Bound to eternity, 
bound a sinner to the judgment-seat, aspiring to ever- 
lasting blessedness in a holy world, what is it that is all 
essential — what but a new heart, a regenerated and sane 



64 LIFE LESSONS. 

tified spirit, full and free forgiveness through the chan- 
nels of mercy opened by sovereign grace. 

Your duty then, your highest duty, is to lead others to 
Christ — to think of their welfare, not as creatures of to- 
day, but as heirs of eternity. They are ever with you. 
They are fellow-pilgrims. They are children of the same 
Father in heaven. As guilty and wretched, they are en- 
titled to your compassion. As human, they demand your 
sympathy, and the heart that denies that sympathy will 
be burdened thereby. It is made cold, stern, repulsive. 
The very features of it at last bear the imprint of their 
own cursed selfishness, while the loveliness of charity 
cannot remain hid even by the veil of its modesty. 

"As the rivers furthest flowing, 

In the highest hills have birth ; 
As the banyan, broadest growing, 

Oftenest bows its head to earth — 
So the noblest minds press onward, 

Channels far of good to trace ; 
So the largest hearts bend downward, 

Circling all the human race." 



IX. 

ATHEISTIC EVASION OF DUTY. 

" The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." — Ps. xiv. 1. 

THE only consistent method of evading the claims 
of duty, is that which is pursued by the Atheist. 
In denying the existence of a Supreme Ruler, he leaves 
man to all that measure of freedom in his self-will and 
his self-indulgence, which circumstances will allow. In- 
stead of quarrelling with specific obligations, or meeting 
and setting aside the claims of duty in detail — he would 
annihilate at once the authority whicli enjoins them all. 
Instead of cutting down the tree — under the shadow of 
which he cannot bear to sit — piecemeal, instead of lopping 
off limb after limb, he strikes boldly at the trunk itself, and 
it is neither the fault of his will or purpose that he does 
not succeed. In all this — though "a fool," he is a 
logical and consistent fool. He does not take the Uni- 
versalist's position and pretend that the Scriptures — a 
bed of thorns to him in his sins — is as soft as down, 
fighting with a thousand texts of Scripture and finding 
it but a cheerless task to smother them one after another, 
when they come to life again so soon. He does not stop 
at Deism — still a half-way house on the road to a broad 
denial or evasion of duty — finding in that the ground of 
a more than possibility, that all he dreads may be true — 
but boldly, if not honestly, he strides at once to that 

(65) 



66 LIFE LESSONS. 

position where alone lie can consistently reject the claims 
enforced by conscience and the Bible. Calling himself 
an Atheist, with any life that he pleases to lead, he is 
incased and shielded from all assault. You may exhaust 
the magazine of motive, and you cannot reach him. He 
is proof against all. Archimedes said, Give me a pou sto, 
a place to stand, and I will lift the world. The Being 
of a God is pou sto, the place to stand, to move and con- 
trol the mind of man ; and when that is denied, your re- 
sources are gone, you have nothing on which to rest your 
lever. Sometimes a man is shrewd enough to see this, 
and in his aversion to duty he leaps at once into the for- 
tress of Atheism, and defies you. He puts himself be- 
yond the reach of argument or remonstrance. What 
can you say to him ? You might as well attempt to rea- 
son with one who denies your presence. He climbs the 
Babel tower of infidelity to its topmost turret, where no 
arrow of truth can reach him — but if there be an earth- 
quake — his grave would be the deepest as his fall would 
be greatest. But this much we may say for him, while 
he puts himself up so high — so near the lightnings — that 
it is the only place where — with an impenitent heart, 
fully set in resistance to the claims of duty — he can con- 
sistently be at peace. It is the only place where his 
life and principles will not quarrel. 

But to all this there is an offset. There is something 
horrid in the sublime theory upon which Atheism plants 
itself — assuming thence to look down on the existence of 
a God as an idle fantasy. Grant the principle of the 
Atheist, and Nero's wish for Rome is realized for the 
universe. It has but one neck that may be severed at a 
blow, and without a God it is severed. You have noth- 
ing left but a headless trunk — a mere carcass fit to moul- 



ATHEISTIC EVASION OF DUTY. 67 

der and rot. Other errors rob us piecemeal — this does 
its work by wholesale. Others hew off here a thumb, or 
finger, or arm, or pluck out an eye, this tears out the 
living heart as it beats. It is a great loss to have one 
of God's grand and precious truths torn from us, but 
nothing to losing God himself. How do you think one 
of the blessed martyrs would have felt, to have been 
robbed, while hunted in mountain or glen, of any one of 
those pillars of immortal hope which he finds in the word 
of God ? — any one of those beams that shone full from 
the Sun of Righteousness in upon the darkness of his 
bosom ? And yet, would it have been anything to be 
compared with having all those pillars wrested away, and 
the fabric overthrown — or having that sun itself blotted 
out with all its beams in eternal night ? Atheism is con- 
sistent with itself when, as in the French revolution, it 
writes over the gateway to the grave, " Death is an eter- 
nal sleep." It is consistent with itself when it annuls 
every restraint that is exercised over wicked men by the 
apprehension of. a Supreme Judge and a final retribution. 
It is consistent with itself when it closes every temple 
of worship, and rends to atoms all those hallowed sym- 
pathies and hopes with which the soul of man is inspired 
to do and suffer on earth. It is consistent with itself 
when it leaves the unaided reason of man to grapple in 
blank despair with the fearful problems of his existence 
and destiny — when it sends him to the grave with all the 
racking uncertainty and doubt that invest the possibili- 
ties of a hereafter — when it robs the injured sufferer of 
the last hope of redress in the justice of heaven, and at 
the same time unbars the gates of every lawless passion 
and impulse, emancipating it from all sense of accounta- 
bility or dread of retribution. If there is any one con- 



68 LIFE LESSONS. 

ception into which all these elements of the terrible, the 
sublime and the despairing, are compressed and combined, 
it is that this scheme of existence, this moral and physi- 
cal universe, is without a controlling mind — without a 
God. We stand appalled at the blind working of this 
immense mechanism of worlds, where one jar or accident 
hurls the whole to atoms, and makes the vast chaos one 
common grave for all that lives. Suns and systems rush 
along no iron track with a speed that mocks the grasp 
of our conception, and there is no engineer with his 
hand upon the throttle or the break. The structure of 
human society, of human justice and legislation, is with- 
out any divine sanction. Its corner-stone is crumbled, 
and every hour it runs the risk of destruction and ex- 
tinction. 

The security of an oath is but a fable — and the ad- 
ministering it a jest. The laws of justice are but the 
rule of expedience, and crime is merely the blunder of 
him that commits it. All the punishment that the guilty 
needs to dread is just that which he has to fear from an 
equal, and all the encouragement that the innocent can 
hope, is that which is doled out to him in the scanty and 
fallible allotments of the accidents of human justice. 
You have taken away all that strength to resist, and 
that encouragement to endure, and that sense of respon- 
sibility forbidding to swerve, which are found in the 
thought, " Thou God seest me." You have annulled all 
those cheerful, hopeful springs of effort which find their 
strength in the complacent smile of an approving God. 
In the hour of calamity and darkening anguish, you have 
taken away the last resource on which the child of 
sorrow and affliction can lean. Life is only a brilliant 
dream, lighting its own way to the grave, kindled just 



ATHEISTIC EVASION OF DUTY. 6g 

long enough, to flash upon the gloom that is to cover it. 
Man is an orphan — or a helpless child of uncertainty, 
want, guilt and anguish. The world is a desert and a 
graveyard. Eternity is a terrible unexplored chaos, 
the more terrible because unknown. The lofty hopes 
inspired by the Gospel are like itself, ignes fatid, brilliant 
only to mislead and betray. The fond affections that 
would follow their loved object to the grave, and will 
not desert it even then — these are but the implements of 
our torment, the chains that we must wear to gall us. 
No hope lights up the parting hour of earth ; no possible 
prospect of a blest reunion can extract its sting. We 
must stand shuddering over the fathomless gulf of anni- 
hilation, and feed our fancy on the shadows that imagi- 
nation summons out of its darkness. 



" Behold, then, man, the creature of a day, 
Spouse of the worm, and brother of the clay, 
Frail as the leaf in Autumn's yellow bower, 
Dust in the wind, or dew upon the flower ; 
A friendless slave, a child without a sire, 
Whose mortal life and momentary fire 
Light to the grave his chance-created form, 
As ocean wrecks illuminate the storm. 
And when the gun's tremendous flash is o'er, 
To night and darkness sink for evermore." 

If a man can embrace such a theory — a theory whose 
open arms wait to press him to its bosom of hidden 
daggers — a theory that sacrifices all that we love, and 
scorns all that we respect, and blasts all that we hope, 
and desecrates all that we worship — if he can embrace 
such a theory and find delight in it — and feel no humilia- 
tion at the nothingness to which it reduces him, and no 



7 o 



LIFE LES80N8. 



pain at the robbery which it inflicts, we will consent to 
except him from the common lot and sympathies of man, 
but in disavowing him, we must disavow his theory too, 
and own that such an attainment as his is beyond and 
above the reach of our envy. 

Such, then, is the gloomily sublime position which the 
Atheist occupies — and often is proud to occupy, as though 
there were a merit and a triumph in the bold achieve- 
ment of mounting to that height of scepticism from 
which he looks down contemptuously on all' that is dear, 
or honored, or sacred in the life and hopes of man. Then 
he lays claim to a mind more impartial, an intelligence 
more searching — a science more extensive and accurate, 
than that of other men ; he speaks in a tone of pity of 
their religious weakness and errors, their superstitious 
scruples, their bondage to worn out and obsolete notions. 
But what is his achievement, save the gloomiest conquest 
of all? what his triumph but the triumph of despair? 
If he has searched beyond the ken of others — if he has 
read with a keener vision the mysteries of nature, 
if he has explored the realms of thought which others 
have never trod, what is the result that he brings back ? 
what is the conclusion of all, that he is proud to an- 
nounce ? That there is no God ! 

" Are these the pompous tidings ye proclaim, 
Lights of the world, and demigods of fame ? 
Is this your triumph, this your proud applause, 
Children of Truth, and champions of her cause ? 
For this hath Science searched with weary wing, 
By shore and sea each mute and living thing. 
For this constrained to utterance earth and air, 
To waft us home the message of despair. 
Then let her bind the palm, her brow to suit, 
Of blasted leaf and death-distilling fruit. 



A THEISTIG EVASION OF B UTT. 7 1 

Then let her read, not loudly nor elate, 
The doom that bars us from a better fate. 
But sad as angels for the good man's sin, 
Blush to record, and weep to give it in." 

The Atheist's presumed conquest is that of disaster 
and defeat, his boast is one over which his heart might 
break. 

But by what strange method is it that the Atheist 
climbs to this rocky height, where, like Satan on the 
throne of hell, he sits " supreme in misery " ? How are 
we constrained to wonder at the immensity of his re- 
sources, by means of which he can reach that position 
from which he can look down upon the being of a God 
as an exploded and obsolete notion — from which he can 
look abroad through the immensity of suns and systems 
and feel warranted to declare, " They had no author ; 
they have no guide." Before such an immense and won- 
derful intelligence as this, all the learning and attain- 
ments of the greatest scholars and philosophers of the 
world, become diminutive and insignificant. The mind 
of Newton had a wonderful grasp and sagacity, but all 
that he attained only led him to bow the more reverently 
before the throne of the Great Ruler, and the poet has 
traced his epitaph in those words : 

" Sagacious reader of the works of God." 

Milton was read in classic lore, and he possessed a 
genius to make classic whatever flowed from his own 
pen ; but from his broad survey of earth and man he 
turned back, exclaiming : 

" One Almighty is from whom 
All things proceed and up to Him return." 



7 2 LIFE LESSONS. 

Bacon, with an intellect that seemed made to pioneer the 
ages, uncovered with a mighty hand link after link in 
the chain of causation ; but instead of reaching the lofty 
position of the Atheist, he had to be content with a 
humbler measure of attainment, and the feeble light that 
he kindled was only enough to extort the confession : 
" I had rather believe all the fables of the Legend, and 
the Alkoran, and the Talmud, than that this universal 
frame of things is without a God.' 7 But all these minds, 
great as we measure them, are but pygmies to the 
Atheist, and all their attainments leave them on the first 
round of that ladder to whose top he climbs ! 

Who does not wonder, then, by what power of genius 
that height is reached — what hands have framed the lad- 
der or hewn the staircase, by which the brain of man, 
without reeling or growing dizzy, has mounted to it ? 

The basis on which the wisdom of all other philosophy 
has been constrained to rest, has been the existence of a 
great first cause on which all others depend ; but Atheism, 
outrivalling the Almighty himself, who hung the world 
on nothing, presumes to suspend all secondary causes on 
no hook at all, and sustains them all without an uphold- 
ing hand. 

What other minds consider as absurd, and repudiate 
as folly, the Atheist receives as reasonable, consistent 
and wise. He can believe in a design without a designer, 
a creation without a creator — a government without a gov- 
ernor, a system without a devising and ordaining mind. 

What other minds in their paroxysms of unbelief are 
constrained to confess, they can only attain to doubt, he 
boldly and habitually denies, asserting as established 
that of which they can see not the barest possibility of 
proof or evidence. 



ATHEISTIC EVASION OF DUTY. 73 

What other minds deem incredible, because outfaced 
and overwhelmed by a thousand contrary and invincible 
probabilities, he declares to be true, running in the teeth 
of other men's reason and common sense. 

While other men can go back in the history of the 
worlds only to the creating fiat of Jehovah, he can 
declare their eternal existence, or put the " genesis of 
chance " among the rationalities of his creed. 

While everything else in the universe animate or inani- 
mate, according to its grade and nature, declares like a 
witness, " there is a God/ 7 and the very structure of the 
Atheist's body and soul confirm the evidence, his voice 
rises discordant and gives them all the lie. 

What then must be that immense superiority of intelli- 
gence, that surpassing grasp of mind, that unparalleled 
learning, which shall warrant a man to take this position, 
with every sun and star in heaven looking down with an 
eye of rebuke upon him, and every sand grain and dew 
drop flashing back the remonstrance, and then and thus 
assert, there is no God ? Such a man should possess, in 
himself, not only the lore of ages, but the history of eter- 
nity, not a narrow acquaintance with a single world, but 
a minute familiarity with all worlds, not a shrewd suspi- 
cion of what the soul may be, but a positive knowledge 
of all its mysteries, its origin and destiny. He should 
have the power of reasoning surpassing any thing that 
mortal man has ever developed, a glance that can not 
only penetrate the mysteries of nature, but discern the 
secrets of eternity. And when you can bring me such 
an one denying that there is a God, in other words, pre- 
sent me with God himself in audible voice, disavowing 
his own existence, then, and not till then, will I consent, 
not to be an Atheist, for that would still be impossi- 
4 



74 



LIFE LESSONS. 



ble, but to confess that to be one admitted of some pal- 
liation. 

Surely that intelligence that presumes to have reached 
such a point as Atheism, has overshot its object, and only 
embarrassed itself by its presumption. It has assumed 
so much that we can yield it nothing. It has claimed 
such wisdom that with the warrant of God's word, we 
can call it nothing but fool. And what has it accom- 
plished, what has it aimed to accomplish, but to achieve 
death and demonstrate despair, and assure annihilation ? 
Sadly, sadly do we contemplate such triumphs if they 
were real, rejoiced rather to think and sing : 

" Thou art O God, the life and light 
Of all this wondrous world we see ; 

Its glow by day, its smile by night, 
Are but reflections caught from thee ; 

Where'er we turn, thy glories shine, 

And all things fair and bright are thine." 

The absurdity of Atheism has but one parallel and that 
is the disastrous nature of the conclusions at which it 
seeks to arrive. 

But Atheism is not the product of intellect ; it does 
not, unless in some very rare cases, originate in the brain. 
The fool has said in his heart " there is no God." He 
has gone down, down into the deepest, darkest cham- 
bers of imagery within, that there without discovering a 
blush, and hidden from the scrutiny of reason, he might 
assert, there is no such thing as light, " for God is light, 
and in Him there is no darkness at all." It was in that 
den, where all manner of evil thoughts are born, thoughts 
that are robbers, and extortioners, and adulterers, and 
murderers, long before the guilty deed is done, — it was 



ATHEISTIC EVASION OF DUTY. 75 

there that Atheism drew its first breath. It was born 
of rebellion and of crime. The dreadful wish was father 
to the thought. Man hated God before he denied Him. 
He broke His law, before he attempted to dethrone Him. 
There must be a strong impulse to Atheism from within, 
before reason can be driven to the bold assertion that 
contemns the evidence without. The heart must be a 
tyrant before the head can become a slave to lie for its 
master. Then it puts into the lips of reason, words 
whose utterance degrades it, sentiments with which 
reason has no relations but of antipathy. Of rabid scep- 
tics this has in many instances been the history. By 
some sin or course of sin they had first committed them- 
selves to a life with which Atheism alone was consistent, 
and they were impelled by all the memory of the past, 
and every foreboding of the future, to patch up some de- 
vice that could shield their conscience, and cry peace, 
2Jeace, even though there was no peace. 

The true remedy for Atheism therefore, as might be 
supposed, is not evidence or argument addressed to the 
intellect, but moral truth and duty brought home to the 
conscience and the heart. The whole Bible has not an 
argument in it addressed to the reason of man to con- 
vince him of a God. That point is everywhere assumed. 
And there is no need of plausible suggestions to show 
that in this it is right. 

The man who will swallow the absurdities of Atheism, 
that will believe that any other intellect than his own is 
the crude product of chance, that will count the world 
and human existence things undesigned, must be impelled 
by a something within him too mighty for reason to mas- 
ter. The heart is wrong, and, first of all, he must be 
made to feel and confess it. We say to such a man, 



76 



LIFE LESSONS, 



look in upon your own being, and see if you have never 
felt that you were a sinner, if you have never heard a 
still, small voice speaking within you as experience never 
speaks, with a more than mortal majesty, reminding you 
of duty and enforcing it by something more terrible than 
the fear of human justice. Look and see if upon your 
whole moral nature there is not stamped a deep sense of 
accountability that you cannot shake off ; ask that nature, 
whether it be not true as the most noted of all French 
revolutionists was at last constrained to declare, that if 
there were no God, it behooved man to invent one ; ask 
yourself if the sense of your dependence and accounta- 
bility does not plainly declare, that your own soul is in 
an unnatural state, when it does not look up in glad 
and grateful recognition of a God above, in whom you 
live and move and have your being ; ask yourself if that 
life which religion, or the recognition of a God, calls 
upon you to lead, is not the one most suited to your state, 
condition and hopes ; ask whether the daily mercies that 
overflow your path do not call forth an involuntary and 
spontaneous burst of gratitude, and to whom does that 
gratitude refer, who is or can be its object but God. 

Surely that life of man out of which the element of 
religion is excluded is at war with reason, with conscience, 
with the peace, and condition and hopes of man. The 
suffrage of all ages condemns it. There is nothing to 
defend it but the absurdity of Atheism. 

Let one thing then remain fixed and solid among the 
eternal principles by which life is to be guided— there is 
a God. There is a great eternal power above us all, 
under whose eye we live, whose will is our law, and to 
whose tribunal we are accountable. Live then under the 
solemn consciousness of this great and fearful truth, and 



ATHEISTIC EVASION OF DUTY. 77 

in forming your purposes, and cherishing your hopes, let 
them never clash with it, for whosoever shall fall on this 
shall be broken, and on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall 
grind him to powder. 

It is only the perverse heart that rebels against the 
authority of God. It is only the guilty heart that wishes 
Him not to be. But holiness triumphs in the assurance 
that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that 
diligently seek Him. The soul panting for a higher 
than any earthly good, cries out for God, for the living 
God. The pure spirit exults to contemplate the perfec- 
tions of that great Being whose name is a terror to the 
evil-doer, but to whom the wronged, the sufferer, the peni- 
tent, humbled prodigal turn, casting themselves with hope 
and joyful trust on " the Fatherhood of God." 



X. 

THE GOOD OF LIFE. 

" What is good for man." — Ec. vi. 12. 

SUPPOSE a rnan in the full vigor of his matured 
faculties, but without previous knowledge or ex- 
perience, to be placed in just such a world as this. He 
cannot — at first, at least — converse with others, and so 
he is dependent for all he can discover on himself alone. 
What are the questions that will press themselves on the 
attention of such a man. and what are the conclusions he 
will be forced to adopt ? 

As he begins his explorations, he finds that this world 
is fitted up as a dwelling place, and an appropriate 
dwelling place, for man. It furnishes him food, shelter, 
and endlessly varied materials for his ingenuity to shape 
into forms for use and comfort and beauty. In the most 
secluded valley his prospect is as boundless as the distant 
stars, and his gaze pierces into the depths of immensity. 
The light is adapted to the eye. and the eye to the light ; 
the air to the lungs and the lungs to the air, food to the 
system and the system to food. Every joint of the body 
is a mechanism of most wonderful art. and the inexplic- 
able control of the will over the muscles is a perpetual 
miracle of goodness. The riches of the earth, in soil, 
mine, forest, vegetable and animal life, are inexhaustible, 
and all these are placed under the control of man. The 
broad domain is all his own. 

' : What does all this mean," he asks. i: I had no 
agency in placing myself here. I did not originate my 

(78) 



THE GOOD OF LIFE. 



79 



own being. And jet here I am in a world wondrously 
constructed, while I myself am a greater wonder still." 
Would not the conviction flash upon him inevitably — 
" I am placed here for some purpose, and my first business 
is to know what that purpose is ? I can think and feel 
and reason ; I am not like the brute grazing yonder, that 
is only intent on its food. I am not like the acorn fall- 
ing unconscious to the earth, to root and germinate 
where it falls. The reason within me demands a prob- 
lem to grapple with, but where is one to be found like 
this — why am I here, and what is the object of my 
creation ? Till this is solved, every other is impertinent. 
A traveller needs to know his goal before he sets out on 
his journey. I cannot take a step till I know my real 
mission." 

And now — without any revelation as yet that speaks 
to him directly — he seeks to know what that mission is. 
First of all he sees that it must be an important one — 
that the world itself is evidently made for man. Every- 
thing is subservient to his comfort and advantage. He 
is the lord, the world is his domain. He is the flower 
of the stalk — the apex of the pyramid. He is the central 
orb around which all the others revolve. Everything 
finds its highest use and value in serving him. Take him 
away, and the world is a kind of headless trunk. What 
is his inference? Is it not that the great Maker 
creates and works -and governs with reference to man, 
that the end for which all these wonderful things exist, 
is to be sought where it centers — in the man ? 

" Here, then," he says, " am I fearfully and wonder- 
fully made, and everything I see around me seems to say, 
we exist for you. The sun says, I shine for you. The 
flower says, I bloom for you. And the harvest says, I 



80 LIFE LESSONS. 

wave for you, and the birds say, we sing for you. The 
world is the garden, but I am the vine, and by what I 
am, or what I can do or produce, creative wisdom is to 
be justified. 

" And what can I do or become ? I can live like the 
brute and die like the brute y but then all my superior 
faculties would be superfluous. I can live to eat and 
drink, and jest and sport years and opportunities away 
in wanton pleasure. But I feel that this would be 
making myself a barren fig-tree, useless alike to God 
and man. Better that I had never breathed. I can 
carve statues and pile up palaces, and build swift ships, 
but ere long the statues will crumble, and the palaces 
will fall, and the swift ships go to the bottom of the sea. 
I must do some other work than this. I must sculpture 
something beside marble. I must quarry something 
beside granite. I must build with something better than 
elm or oak or pine." 

And would not such a man then be driven to ask — as 
Plato did — what is the good ? What is the best thing? 
What above all else is the richest jewel of this great 
mine of human enterprise? It is not beauty. That 
fades. It is not strength. That decays. It is not 
learning. Over-crowded memory lets it spill and waste. 
It is not honor or fame. A breath makes these, and at 
a breath they fade. It is not show or splendor. The 
pageant vanishes like a vapor, and moths consume the 
wardrobe. It is not even disciplined intellect. That 
may be the tool of ambition. It may be used to poison 
the fountains of human thought. The man that has it 
may curse it at last, if an evil heart makes it but an 
instrument of mischief, or if it gives him to see only too 
clearly what he is. 



THE GOOD OF LIFE. 81 

All these things are the husk, but what is the grain ? 
Is there none? That cannot be. Winnow away the 
chaff and stubble, and what is left ? Let a man's body- 
crumble, let his fortune be scattered, let the works he 
built go to decay — has all then perished ? Possibly. 
And yet if that man was true to conscience and to 
charity, every one feels that he was richer than his for- 
tune, and greater than all his works — that he was the 
building and they the scaffolding — that he was himself 
the treasure, and they the box that guarded it. The 
integrity that millions could not bribe, we all feel to be 
worth more than these millions. A Luther at the Diet 
of Worms, planting himself on the authority of Scripture 
alone, and declaring, " here I take my stand ; I cannot do 
otherwise ; God help me" — a Bradford or a Winthrop 
sacrificing ease and comfort, and the luxuries of English 
homes for the perils of the wilderness with the privilege 
to worship God — a Hampden standing up manfully to 
contest the tax of a few shillings, but which invaded the 
freedom of the English constitution — a John Howard 
or Robert Raikes, or Oberlin or Felix Neff, studying out 
new methods of Christian charity and putting them into 
execution— who does not feel that such men as these 
show us in what the worth of human existence con- 
sists, and how, just as rain and sunshine and damp 
soil and decaying matter are by Nature's chemistry 
changed into the majestic tree that spreads out its broad 
branches in bloom and strength and beauty, so by the 
true chemistry of virtuous aims, these hours of service, 
this soil of probation, and this wealth of transient privi- 
lege are transformed or absorbed, and so incorporated 
into that human career which by self-denial and charity 
and holy purposes, is made a tree of life, and under the 
4* 



g 2 LIFE LESSONS. 

shadow of which earth's weary pilgrims, invoking bless- 
ing on it, lie down to rest ? 

The world, too, whatever other ends it may be de- 
signed for — and in everything from the insect to the 
eagle, from the sand grain to the mountain, it glorifies 
the great Maker — is specially designed to educate the 
soul. You go into a school-room, and though built of 
logs, yet by all its arrangements, you recognize its de- 
sign. There are benches, desks, books and diagrams, 
and charts, perhaps, on the walls. Is not the globe a 
broader school-room, with "tongues in trees, books in the 
running brooks, sermons in stones, etc." ? Is it not cov- 
ered over with diagrams and parables and emblems? 
Is there a thing that blooms or fades that does not 
preach its silent sermon to the listening ear ? Do not 
the deep-set rocks and the giant mountains become to us 
speaking types of the deep-set foundations of justice, 
and the towering greatness of incorruptible virtue ? 
What is history, as generations make it and write it, but 
just the register of human attainment — the scholarship 
of those who have learned to teach others and become 
eminent themselves, or who have excelled in mischief? 
What do these centuries turn out but the graduates of 
probation — and what is experience working out every 
day, even where human science is unknown, but new 
measures of moral attainment ? A man may succeed or 
fail in business, he may be distinguished or obscure, but 
one thing is always true of him, he is receiving a moral 
education. He is under discipline. He is studying the 
fruits of good and evil deeds. His eye is directed in- 
evitably at the career and fate of others, and he is forced 
to consider what will be the consequence of his own 
action. Thus is he forced to deliberate, to weigh mo- 



THE GOOD OF LIFE. 83 

tives, to calculate results. This is true of all, and almost 
the only thing that is. How it proclaims the nature and 
scope of our existence here ! Just as the scholar would 
attain the ends of scholarship, just as he feels that for 
these he seeks the halls of science and learning, and that 
sportive indolence and dissipation are foreign to his pur- 
pose, and that rich dress and sumptuous feasts cannot 
promote it — so we, pupils under God's tuition, are edu- 
cating for moral ends, are under discipline to learn 
lessons of truth and duty, to perfect ourselves in virtue, 
to become such in life and character as to justify the 
outlay for the advantages we enjoy, and the price of 
divine tuition. 

And what a new force and pertinency is given to this 
thought when we consider how short our stay here on 
earth is ? A few years at school or college seem to those 
who look back on them from the distance as a type of 
life itself. We stay here only to be educated — only to 
complete our moral lessons, only just long enough to 
make it plain that we have improved our privileges, or 
that we never would if they were prolonged a thousand 
years. And then we go away. We go as the scholar 
does, carrying away nothing but just his education itself. 
He sells his furniture, quits his room, parts, perhaps, 
with his books, breaks off from all his old associations, 
bids farewell to all his intimate companions, and goes 
forth without any visible remnant of all his toil and 
application, to what is as it were a new world. The 
result of all his efforts is to be found in himself alone, in 
his knowledge, his disciplined powers, his education — in 
nothing you can weigh or handle, or offer for sale in the 
market. 

And who can fail to see the parallel of our life ? Is 



84 LIFE LESSONS. 

it not stupid not to see the difference between a well- 
stored study and a well-stored mind? And is it not 
stupid not to see that our privileges on earth are 
valueless except as they educate the soul and discipline 
it for moral service, and fit it, as it bids farewell to 
earthly associations, to enter upon others more enduring, 
fitted already for the world for which it was preparing 
here. 

Now suppose a man reasoning from the facts of his 
own experience, to come to such a conclusion as this, 
and then to fall as it were accidentally upon the word 
of God, even without knowing it as yet to be divine — 
what, as he peruses it, will be the impression it will 
make ? Will it not rivet his conclusions, yet infinitely 
enlarge his views ? Will it not put beyond all doubt 
the question as to life and its meaning? Will it not 
force him to say — " I am here to prepare for a higher 
life ? I am here a probationer for eternity. The great 
end for which the world has been made and man placed 
on it, is to be attained by the shaping and education of 
the soul, and responsible for this, I am bound to make it 
my first and greatest care." 

Nay, will he not feel that the only real good of life 
must be sought in the attainment of the end for which it 
was bestowed ? Must he not count everything else sub- 
ordinate to this ? Must he not feel that it becomes him 
above all to apply himself to understand in what a 
proper education for eternity consists, and what is the 
method by which it is to be secured ? 



XI. 

IGNORANCE OP THE GOOD OP LIFE. 

"Who knoweth what is good for man in this life?" — Ec. vi. 12. 

IF a little child should assume to set aside all control 
and educate and govern itself — if it should be allowed 
to indulge without restraint its likes and dislikes — it 
would shortly become a little willful tyrant, a specimen 
of ripe, full-grown depravity. His will would not only 
master his own judgment and conscience, but would spurn 
alike the counsel and the authority of others. He would 
present an embodied definition of the folly and the wick- 
edness of human nature left to itself. 

The result is due to two causes, though they co-operate 
as one, like the weight and the speed of stroke in the 
momentum of a murderer's club — one is the child's abso- 
lute ignorance of what is best for itself, and the other is 
his indisposition to the good even when he knows it — 
that is, his perverting persuasion that what he wishes is 
best, and that what he dislikes is evil. 

But men are only children of a large growth, and in 
them both these causes are also more or less at work. 
In our ignorance of what is best for us, we are too often 
like children, and in our attempt to make that our good, 
by the force of will, which can only tend to mischief, we 
act the part of children whose erring fancies tempt us to 
smile, or whose more deliberate errors we sternly correct. 

(85) 



86 LIFE LESSONS. 

A child wants certain toys. He gets them ; per- 
haps pays an exorbitant price for them. How soon they 
lose all their charms, and are cast by as rubbish. Who 
does not read in that a parable of more advanced years, 
men seeking certain objects to insure their happiness, but 
soon satiated, and casting them aside as unsatisfactory. 

The child sees a beautiful butterfly and chases it. 
Only to secure it will fill his eager desire. He follows 
it perhaps in vain, or if he grasps it, he crushes the frail 
treasure which is cruelly injured. What is this but the 
chase of men for the objects of ambition. 

A little child has two large apples given it. Benjamin 
Franklin, to teach a lesson, says, give it another. In 
trying to grasp the third, it loses both. What is this 
but human avarice grasping more than it can hold, not 
satisfied with enough, and losing what it has to gain 
more? 

Again, the child longs for some toy which it is not fit 
to manage, a knife or a pistol, or some such dangerous 
thing. It gets it only to maim itself and bitterly regret 
that its wishes were ever gratified, or that its parents 
ever indulged its wild humor. 

Still again, it longs for something that shall minister 
to its vanity, some ornament or some article of rich 
clothing. It moves abroad in its rich array, feeding on 
the admiration it excites, and its thoughts are set on the 
light trivialities of dress, or the praise or notice which 
these follies may secure. Who can tell the mischief that 
is thus done ? Who can tell how long that moral poison 
of vanity and self-conceit, that is thus introduced, will 
rankle in the soul ? But how much more dignified or 
becoming are the thoughts of thousands who are eager 
for display, or who seek the praise and honor of men ! 






IGNORANCE OF THE GOOD OF LIFE. 87 

Many a one that attains these is intoxicated by them, and 
only acts the part of a gaudy human peacock, to the dis- 
gust of thoughtful and the pity of anxious observers. 

How often does one say to himself, if I could only at- 
tain such a position I should be satisfied and happy. 
He struggles for it. He sacrifices his peace to gain it. 
Perhaps he condescends to mean or dishonorable acts ; he 
risks and perhaps loses his reputation for fairness and 
honorable dealing to attain it. And after it is gained, 
it only draws him into the very path of the tempter. It 
throws him into the society of the unprincipled or in- 
temperate or profane to which he feels forced to conform. 
Henceforth his path is downward, and the career to ruin 
dates from the very success which he coveted. If his 
aims had been defeated, he might have died an honest 
man. 

It is the story of the gambler's first success over again. 
He is lured to his ruin. He sees what he calls good, 
and eager to grasp it plunges over a precipice. 

Many a man might have lived safe and useful in some 
humble sphere where Providence had cast his lot. He 
might have been happy there. But restless and dissatis- 
fied he flies from one object to another. He climbs some 
strange height to be dizzied there. He plunges into 
some mine of intrigue only to be smothered in its stifling 
damps. He hurries from one enterprise to another only 
to fail in all, and pile wreck on wreck. 

But suppose a man by shrewdness and energy to suc- 
ceed in all he undertakes — suppose him to become all 
that his worldly ambition could covet. Is that best for 
him ? Has he the true good ? His short years know 
scarcely a sorrow or disappointment. He is like Job in 
his first prosperous estate. Thousands perhaps regard 



88 LIFE LESSONS. 

him with envy. They see not the secret cares that are 
wrinkling his brow. They read not the inward wretch- 
edness that can wring so little happiness out of such 
large possessions and such marked triumphs. 

But what does it all amount to when a few years are 
flown — when the hand trembles and the steps totter. 
Perhaps this present good kept a future and eternal good 
out of sight. Perhaps the man was so well satisfied with 
what he had, that he sought no more. He had houses, 
but no conscious title to a house not made with hands. 
He had wealth, and that deluded him into neglect of the 
treasure laid up in heaven. He had the respect of men, 
and that allowed him to think lightly of the honor that 
cometh from God only. Too late he wakes up to the 
fact that he is poor in all that constitutes the riches of 
the soul, unprosperous in all that constitutes true success. 
His prospect is dark as the grave that no promise illumi- 
nates. He has no hope. He has no trust or peace in 
God. He feels, if there is a judgment to come, he is all 
unprepared for it. If there is a future retribution, he 
can only fear. How, perhaps, he envies the poor invalid 
that is dependent on charity for bread or a grain of 
comfort ! How he exclaims — " that I had never known 
such success as I have met with, such rewards as I have 
gained. In a harder lot I had been a better man. Un- 
der the smart of affliction, my pride had been humbled 
and I had been taught to rely on God." 

How this reminds us of the lament which Milton puts 
in the mouth of the great fallen arch-angel : 



" O had his powerful destiny ordained 
Me some inferior angel, I had stood 
Then happy; no unbounded hope had raised 
Ambition." 






IGNORANCE OF THE GOOD OF LIFE. 89 

No man — so far as worldly attainments or possessions 
are concerned — can tell what is best for him. The 
things lie covets most may do him the greatest harm. 
They may be the very ones which, if he could see the 
end from the beginning, he would pray to be delivered 
from. Sometimes his prize turns out to be an infernal 
machine. His arts of gain prove the rust that eats his 
soul as it were fire. The society which he successfully 
aspires to secure, is but an honorable escort to dissipation 
and perdition. His very genius, securing him the ap- 
plause of others, is only the rocket's blaze lighting him 
up to heights from which pitying eyes shall mark his 
fall. In the end it may even be, and sometimes is the 
case, that he would give all his wealth and honors just 
to be put back where he might begin anew a different 
life. Like Richard Cour de Lion at his father's bier, he 
feels all the sad regret compressed in those stinging, re- 
morseful words : 

"Alas, my guilty pride and ire! 
Were but this deed undone, 
I would give England's crown, my sire, 
To hear thee bless thy son." 

If one thinks of the life to come, to how brief a space 
does this vain life, transient and fleeting as a vapor, 
shrink ! How unimportant appear its outward circum- 
stances ! What matters it to the sojourner for the night 
whether the roof that shelters him is canvas or a dome 
of gold? What matters it to him that no sumptuous 
feast frowns contempt on his meaner fare ? These years 
fly by like the wastes of the traveller's journey, and as 
each day vanishes, how little concern does its show or 
parade excite ? For a little while to be cheered or hissed, 



9 o LIFE LESSONS. 

for a little while to be in want or to abound, for a little 
while to stand on the pinnacle or in the valley— what 
does this amount to ? And who knows which is best in 
the end ? To be where the lightning strikes — to have 
that as an ornament which grows into a cross, heavy to 
be borne — to be one of a circle which are linked together 
to drag one another downward — who might not pray, 
from all this, " Good Lord deliver us ?" The steep path 
which energy may climb may be edged with the precipice. 
The sumptuous fare that appetite craves may confirm a 
glutton. The sunshine of prosperity may wilt and wither 
the fresh, green hopes that would have thriven in the 
shade. 

The wisdom of man is to confess that so far as worldly 
circumstances are concerned, he does not know what is 
best for him. A nation does not know. Judah in cap- 
tivity was learning lessons that restored her to the favor 
of her offended God. The civil war of England was the 
stern discipline that bore fruit a generation later in the 
Revolution Settlement and Act of Toleration. We are 
passing now through the Red Sea and Desert of our 
history. Who can tell whether hereafter even short- 
sighted men shall not pronounce it the most important 
and profitable period of our career, teaching us lessons 
that would have been too faint-lined unless written in 
blood ! 

So no man can say that his hardest trials are not the 
most profitable for him. No man can fix his heart on 
any worldly good whatever, whether of property or sta- 
tion or knowledge or power, and say, That will bless me ; 
that will make me ha,ppy. There is nothing left for us 
but to bow our ignorance in the dust before God's infinite 
wisdom, and to say like the child conscious of his weak- 



IGNORANCE OF THE GOOD OF LIFE. 91 

ness, Lead me as thou wilt, I know not what to ask. 
Not my will, but thine. 

Yet is there no good that is such beyond all question- 
ing or doubt ? Is there not something attainable by man 
in this his brief, vain life, which by the concession of all 
is of vast importance, and of unutterable value — some- 
thing which is not granted merely to a favored few, the 
exclusive favorites of fortune, but which the poor and 
rich, the learned and ignorant alike may be warranted 
to seek ? Is there not something which is to all outward 
blessings like the wheat to the chaff, like the gold to the 
dross ! Is there not something without which a Croesus 
is but an object of pity, and with which a Lazarus might 
be the envy of kings ? 

I had not completed writing the foregoing paragraph 
when I received a letter written by one who for months 
had been steadily looking forward to bis decease, and 
who while yet he was able was dispensing charitably and 
wisely the wealth with which God had blessed him, in 
which he says — " My flesh and strength are much wasted, 
and I am very feeble. I can only walk or tottle to my 
chair. . . . But I feel calm and resigned. . . . My 
Saviour appears beautiful and glorious to me. The Gos- 
pel and the promises thereof never looked better or 
brighter. There is full provision for oil our wants." 
The questions of that paragraph were thus answered — 
ere they were asked — by this testimony from the bed of 
a dying saint. It was testimony from a truthful pen — a 
pen tremulous in the feeble grasp that held it, but clear 
and unhesitating in its avowals. "Was there room longer 
to ask whether — in this brief, vain life of man — there is 
not something attainable which is of vast importance and 
infinite value ? Was there room to question the supe- 



9 2 LIFE LESSONS. 



n ^ 



riority to all tilings else of a living faith in the Son of 
God ? The testimony only added another drop to the 
full overflowing stream of evidence. It was but one 
more voice confirmatory of the chorus of the " great cloud 
of witnesses." We know, that ignorant as we are of 
what is best for us as to our outward lot, there is a good, 
the possession of which may well make the soul forget 
all earthly want. 

Most assuredly there is. There is a good without 
alloy — which does not betray with a kiss, which does 
not offer a cup of blessing drugged with woe. It is 
religion — pure and undefiled — that religion which bears 
the fruits of hope, faith, love and joy. Its presence makes 
the heaven of the soul even in this vale of tears. It gives 
us God for our present and everlasting portion. It sanc- 
tifies sorrow, and roofs the wanderer's unsheltered head 
with the guardianship of Jehovah. It is a possession 
which no man ever regrets. It leaves no sting in the 
memory, no gnawing worm in the conscience. 

And it is offered to all. It is offered to you. It is 
urged upon your acceptance. You are besought by all 
that is precious in hope or fearful in judgment to make 
it yours. The price that purchased it was the blood of 
God's own Son. Are you eager for worldly good — for 
ease or comfort? Let them go, till this is secured. 
They are but straws, while this is the everlasting crown. 



XII. 

NEED OP A REVELATION. 

"A light shining in a dark place." — 2 Peter i. 19. 

E* YEN a heathen, with the ripe fruits of Christian ex- 
/ perience before him, may feel and acknowledge that 
the true good of man is not of a material but a spiritual 
nature. He may be led freely to confess that the path 
of holiness is the path of blessedness. A voice within 
his own soul may respond its amen to this conviction. 
But without the results of a Christian life before him, 
would he ever have discovered the true good of man, or 
have been won by the attractions of holiness ? 

A man may accept unhesitatingly the results of astro- 
nomical research, and he may hold the convictions which 
the revelations of others have wrought in him, with un- 
shaken tenacity. He may see and feel their truth, while 
yet by his own unaided efforts he never could have at- 
tained to an apprehension of them. It is not so with the 
conclusions of our moral and spiritual astronomy ? Rea- 
son may be utterly inadequate to discern truths which 
when once disclosed, seem to carry their own evidence 
with them, and which the conscience of the little child 
accepts unquestioningly as the simplest spiritual axioms. 
Yet let us by no means depreciate that elementary knowl- 
edge of God — that A, B, C, of theology — or those mono- 
syllables which reason spells out on the pages of creation. 
All this is valuable. As reason's alphabet, it is inestima- 

(93) 



94 LIFE LESSONS. 

bly precious, and yet it is only an introduction to our 
ignorance. It gives hints and suggestions of problems, 
buried deep beyond the reach of reason's plummet. It 
catches a view of the great and ominous shadows, cast 
around our path, from the realities of the invisible world, 
and only spurs our curiosity — and our interest too — to 
know more about them than reason teaches. For beings 
that are by their very nature and constitution, accounta- 
ble, we are possessed even by reason's light, of a fearful 
mass of knowledge — enough to make us tremble at what 
we are — and are to be — enough to render our guilt inex- 
cusable and our condemnation just — but not enough to 
assure us of hope, or clearly define the objects of our faith. 
Our condition in the absence of revelation is that of a 
man groping in the dark, feeling his way, and by the slow 
and tedious process of touch, learning what the lighl 
might teach him in the twinkling of an eye. The Gospel 
is therefore preeminently " a light shining in a darl 
place." 

The feebleness with which reason apprehends — if at 
all — some of the most important subjects of human thought 
and destiny, calls for a revelation that shall make them 
plain. Here in this world, with Nature's lamp only to 
guide, we are like the traveller groping his way at mid- 
night with a lantern in his hand, now climbing the 
almost precipitous height, now gliding along the edge of 
chasms, or sinking in the bog and marsh, till his limbs 
are weary and his patience worn out, and his success 
more than doubtful. We feel that we want the broad 
light of the noonday sun, flung in a flood of splendor over 
hill and valley, lofty crag and deep ravine, till the whole 
landscape stands out distinct to the eye, and the path we 
are to take is clearly and fully before us. It is true 



NEED OF A REVELATION. 95 

there are some eyes that can see better in the dark than 
others ; there are some minds that might have read by 
reason's aid far more than others ; spelling out important 
truths inscribed in hieroglyphics on the ruins of this great 
temple of our human nature. But such minds are few, 
and even they see very indistinctly, and when pride does 
not forbid it, speak like Socrates of old with the full con- 
fession of their ignorance and doubt. Let one grope for 
a while under the guidance of the ancient philosophers, 
and he will begin to learn the value of a solid basis of 
knowledge and a definite apprehension of the state, object 
and prospects of human existence. There are questions 
innumerable that throng about our path, asking for a 
solution, and the oracles of reason are well nigh dumb, 
or if they speak, they are but Delphic shrines. Even the 
probabilities, which we settle down upon, are shaken by 
counter-probabilities, or if undisputed, ask for a clearer 
confirmation. Reason tells me there is a God, but how 
worthless is that great fact, till I know what he is, and 
learn his disposition toward me ! By Nature's light I 
can discover my own dependence and subjection to law, 
but I ask, in vain, for the clear and definite idea of that 
moral government which is over me, and there is even 
room to question how far I shall be held responsible. 
From the works and providence of God I discern a gene- 
ral expression of his friendliness to virtue and reproba- 
tion of vice, but how far this is to take effect hereafter I 
cannot tell. Reason teaches me that I am a fallen being 
— a transgressor of the law, and throws out many hints 
of how terrible a thing it is for any one to place himself 
in the way where the wheels of God's legislation shall 
roll over him, but she is silent when I ask, what is the 
penalty, how enduring, and in what shape will it come ? 






96 LIFE LESSONS. 

No man needs a labored instruction in regard to the sin 
and misery of the world. The apostacy of man is sculp- 
tured deep on the heart and the life of the race. But 
there is a problem as to how this guilt and woe shall be 
removed and man stand justified before his Maker, which 
transcends all the powers of mortal discernment. My 
own constitution, speaking through its aspirations and 
instincts, tells me that I was made for happiness, but 
nature shows me nothing worthy to feed this inward hun- 
ger — she opens no path to that blessedness for which I 
feel that I was made. Reason teaches me how guilt is 
incurred, and that condemnation may not improbably 
fall upon me, but says nothing of any full assurance of par- 
don and deliverance from the curse. No man needs to 
teach me that the world is full of want and anguish, mis- 
fortune, pain and disappointment, but I do ask for a solu- 
tion that shall reconcile all this with the character I love 
to ascribe to my Maker— and reason fails in the attempt 
to furnish it. Surmise and probability are not enough. 
Exposed every moment as we are to accident and death, 
we want a ground for the assurance that our present 
afflictions are light — light because they shall work out 
for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. 
The light of nature suggests, and to some minds doubt- 
less, enforces the conviction of a future judgment, but the 
great features of this foreshadowed fact are only to be 
found on the pages of Revelation. We may gather up 
also many hints in regard to a future state from the aid 
of reason — but still we want something to scatter the 
dimness of doubt, and bring life and immortality to light. 
We may puzzle ourselves not always vainly, but most un- 
satisfactorily, over the strange methods of that Provi- 
dence which distributes the allotments of life in seemingly 



NEED OF A REVELATION. 



97 



unequal measure — but we feel that we want a revelation 
to clear up all, and make our faith intelligent and firm. 
The picture of a thoughtful man in the mazes of igno- 
rance, seeking to understand himself and God, but seek- 
ing in vain for the want of light, is exceedingly affecting. 
But is that of the thoughtless multitude less so, blindly 
acquiescent in their ignorance, and dropping into their 
graves insensible as the. brutes, and making death, the 
catastrophe and issue of a dream? It is not in the 
nature of the human mind lightly to be satisfied on themes 
of such importance as those which should naturally form 
the burden of a Revelation, and which so intimately con- 
cern all that we have to hope or fear forever. We want 
the dim and shadowy outline to become distinct. We 
want the fleeting shapes and coloring that pass before us 
in the prospect, arrested, and fixed down visible and 
definite, giving substance to the transient imagery, that 
sweeps before the field of our reflection. 

For a mind constitutionally timid and distrustful, the 
light of Nature furnishes but a feeble solace. It is more 
inclined to look on the dark than on the light side, and 
dwell on the extent of our ignorance rather than the 
reach of our knowledge. 

What must be the reflections of such a mind scarcely 
venturing to rest on the bare probabilities with which 
it is forced to be satisfied ? Yet with them alone, and 
holding them too by an uncertain tenure, it looks around 
it in the absence of revelation, upon the great mystery of 
life and probation. 

Every question it asks, every struggle after a firm foot- 
ing which it puts forth, only sinks it deeper in the mire. 
It dares not trust even its clearest and boldest reasonings. 
Perhaps it has once relied upon a fallacy, and past expe- 
5 



9 8 LIFE LESSONS. 

rience of its error confirms its tendency to doubt. It 
looks about it like a solitary traveller who has lost his 
way in the wilderness, and vainly searches after a fami- 
liar object, some track or tree, or distant hill-top that 
shall furnish a clew to extricate him from error. The 
questions are innumerable that throng upon the mind. 
It finds itself on this broad ocean of being, without chart 
or compass, or experience, with the broad bright heavens 
indeed above, but with none to translate their mysteries, 
with none to point to Bethlehem's guiding star. The 
facts that are plain only make the mystery of man's state 
still more wonderful and trying. He lives, to die. He 
looks forward, to fear. He reasons, to tremble. He 
hopes, to apprehend disappointment. " What am I," he 
asks, " what is the object of my being, what my state, 
what my relations to a surrounding universe, what my 
prospects for the present or the future ? My present 
home is a world of graves where the survivors dance 
over the dust of the departed, and where death and life 
meet in a strangely near relationship. I too am mortal, 
and when my body crumbles to the dust where will my 
spirit go ? Will that too be dissolved or absorbed, sent 
forth an everlasting and homeless wanderer, or impris- 
oned in chains of darkness ? If it survives, on what sort 
of a field will it enter, with what associates will it min- 
gle, or what will be the nature of its employment ; will 
it be happy or wretched, will it live over again such a 
life as it lived on earth, or a far higher and nobler one ? 
or possibly one far subordinate and degraded ? Shall it 
ascend or descend, rise to the angel or sink to the clod ? 
In what will the nature and object of it consist, will it 
be spiritual, refined, and holy, or polluted, sensual, and 
brutish ? Will it carry with it there the taint of earth, 



NEED OF A REVELATION. 99 

and be followed by its works, and words, and thoughts, 
as persecuting avengers? What is the connection be- 
tween this life and that to come, and what shape shall be 
given to this, so that there shall be no room for after and 
vain regret ? Where can a sufficient guide be found in 
our error, a sufficient remedy in our disease, a support in 
the hour when heart and flesh shall fail ?" 

To these interrogations and a thousand others, reason 
makes no full, no clear reply. She surmises • sums up 
probabilities ; forecasts results ; but pronounces nothing 
definite and certain, ventures no direct assertion, but 
leaves us still in the attitude of expectation and suspense. 
We know enough to excite our fears, to waken our curi- 
osity, to urge us to investigation, to excite our apprehen- 
sions, but just there Nature closes her volume, and leaves 
us in the dark. Something more is necessary now, than 
would have been if the moral order of the world had 
never been disturbed. The clearness of our own reason 
and judgment has been somewhat blinded in the shock. 
Wc have been disqualified for application to the problem 
by the same cause that has, if not created it, involved it in 
deeper difficulty. We cannot occupy with all the powers 
of the largest reason, the position which a sinless being 
might, nor are we prepared by nature's light to say what 
course the infinite wisdom of God will adopt, or what his 
measures will be in regard to us in this unprecedented 
state of things to which the world has been brought by sin. 

And as we might beforehand suppose the light of nat- 
ural reason insufficient, experience has proved it to be so. 
" The world by wisdom knew not God." Every page 
of the history of the race demonstrates our need of a 
revelation. Its enlightening, its purifying, its restraining 
influences were all called for. Read the popular mythol- 



loo LIFE LESSONS, 

ogies, we can hardly call them religious systems, of 
the Old Y^orld, and see what vast magazines they were, 
of wayward fancy and distorted truth, of cruel supersti- 
tion and grossest error, yet swaying the minds of men by 
their strange and terrible spell. They were evidently 
the growth of darkness, of ignorant fear, or, possibly, 
sometimes of ingenious and tyrannic fraud. They were 
limited to no one age or nation. They disgraced the 
fame of Greece and the civilization and learning of 
Rome, as well as the pride of Egypt and the fame of the 
warrior race of Odin. In here and there an instance, no 
doubt, their authority was repudiated, but the exceptions 
were rare. Take up the writings of the wisest men of 
antiquity, and see how they stumbled on some of those 
elementary principles of religious knowledge which pass 
unquestioned even by the modern sceptic. These truths 
on which they doubted are some of them such that the 
simple statement of them carries with it well nigh the 
power of demonstration. And yet if no revelation came, 
no clear and plain instruction of God and His will, how 
long would these errors maintain their hold ? We know 
that of old they yielded only as Christianity progressed, 
and they yield to-day as they did then, not to the ridicule 
of a Lucian, or the contempt of philosophers, but to the 
light of the Gospel. The most odious and horrid vices 
disgraced the noonday of Roman and Grecian achiev- 
ment, and were intimately associated oftentimes with the 
celebration of their mysteries and religious rites. By 
their most distinguished men, they were sometimes 
shamelessly avowed, and formed a fitting counterpart to 
a mythology which seemed the creature of a polluted 
fancy revelling in its own shame. If the light of reason 
could have sufficed, these things should have been as 



NEED OF A BE VELA TION. i o 1 

transient before it as the mists of the morning. They 
should not have waited for the sun of Christianity to rise 
and dispel them. But they maintained their ground in 
spite of art, learning and culture, till this appeared. Nor 
need we be surprised at it. Look at the most eminent 
men of old and see whether their reason could have been 
more than a rushlight amid the darkness around them. 
"Epictetus bids you temporize and worship the gods 
after the fashion of your country ; Pythagoras forbids 
you to pray to God, because you know not what is con- 
venient. Plutarch commends Cato of Utica for killing 
himself amidst philosophic thoughts, with resolution and 
deliberation, after reading Plato on the immortality of 
the soul. Cicero pleaded for self-murder, in which he 
was seconded by Brutus, Cassius, and others who prac- 
ticed it. Customary swearing is commended sometimes 
by precept and often by example of their best moralists." 
Some maintained that right and wrong were mere con- 
ventionalities, just as the Lacedemonians legislated in- 
genious theft into repute. 

Surely, with all the wisdom of antiquity, the knowledge 
of God was not there, and where is the man to-day that 
can point to a tribe or nation that renounced idolatry 
till it came in contact with at least the reflected light of 
revelation. 

Then look at the sanctions and restraints of human 
law, and how weak they are as well as moral considera- 
tions generally, till they are enforced by the clearer 
declarations of revealed truth, quickening the public as 
well as private conscience to renewed sensibility, and 
rebuking all manner of crime by the solemn and fearful 
expectation of a just award, of sanctions that are drawn 
from beyond the grave. 



102 LIFE LESSONS. 

Socially, intellectually and morally, man needs a reve- 
lation. Nature's light is insufficient. The world has 
proved it so. If it bad not, our own feelings would out- 
run the necessity of argument. We want light, light to 
shine in a dark place, light for our souls. 

And what is it that makes our want of a revelation so 
urgent ? The reasons may be found in God's character 
and man's condition. 

What reason teaches us of God forbids us to imagine 
that we are placed here except with a wise design. We 
see a plan apparent in all his works, and man, too, ex- 
cept he be a discord in the great harmony, has an end to 
subserve. Unlike the physical and brute creation he is 
to be intelligently active in attaining it, and instruction 
of some kind is highly necessary to this end. He must 
know God's design in order to be able to enter into it 
and cooperate with it, and the perfection of this design 
itself seems to imply that he should possess this know- 
ledge to such an extent as to render neglect inex- 
cusable. 

Then man's condition, also, is such as seems to call for 
the compassion of such a thing as reason is willing to 
conceive God to be. There are times when ignorance is 
woe, and doubt anguish, and when the mind hungering 
for knowledge is as much an object of pity, as the poor 
victim of disease, or the starving wretch pining for bread. 
And what other than this is the state of man when in the 
absence of revelation he becomes conscious of his want ? 
Place him where he is often found, in circumstances of 
bitter trial, where one by one each earthly hope fails him 
till they all give way, and the forlornness of his lot sinks 
deep into his soul, and with no light or hope from heaven 
what can he do ? He knows of nothing yet in reserve to 






NEED OF A REVELATION. 103 

sustain liim. The future is all blackness unpierced by a 
single cheering ray. No beam of hope traverses the 
tomb or smiles upon him from beyond the grave. He is 
shut up to a present robbed of consolation, or given over 
to a future bounded by despair. What is there now on 
earth to cheer or aid this struggling soul ? The stoicism 
of reason is a poor physician. It nauseates the mysteries 
of science. All the treasures of learning cannot charm 
away its anguish. It needs a divine consoler, it asks a 
guide who will show the way from earth to heaven. It 
is man's sensibility to his want and woe that urges the 
demand, a demand which human wisdom has proved it- 
self unable to supply. We feel, after all, that the sui- 
cide's argument cannot satisfy us, and it poorly reconciles 
us to our lot, if in the refuge of the grave we are to find 
nothing but its oblivion. 

What again must be the feelings of the sensitive mind, 
clinging with a lingering fondness to this its conscious 
being, yet girt about by the gloomy doubts that invest 
the hour of its departure from these scenes ? Have you 
read the story of the dying Hindoo questioning his 
Brahmin teacher what would become of his soul after 
death? The doctrine of its transmigration from one 
body to another, now tenanting a beast, and now a rep- 
tile, was but a poor consolation. No wonder he asks, 
"what then will become of it," and with every new 
change continues still to ask, " what then ?" It is very pos- 
sible for persons even in a Christian land so to shut out 
the light that shines around them that their death too is 
heathenized, and like the dying Rabelais they feel if they 
do not exclaim, " I go to seek a great Perhaps." With- 
out a faith whose eye is enlightened by revelation, it 
must be so. How sad the farewell song of its departure : 



to 4 



LIFE LESSONS. 

u Over the dark, dark sea 

I must go, for the hour has come. 
But where shall my wandering spirit rest 
In its final home ? 

" My life is a dim Perhaps. 

From the rock of faith I'm driven, 
ISTo shining light in my clouded breast, 
No star in heaven. 

" What if this vital force 

Shall be spent when this last breath flies, 
And thought and feeling vanish in night, 
As the lightning dies ! 

" Or what if the conscious soul 

Should be damned, as was taught of old, 
To live in body of bird or beast, 
Years manifold ! 

" Into the gloom I go, 

With perhaps alone before, 
The great sea rolling all around 
Without a shore. 

" Shall I rise to the Christian world, 
With the pure and the good to dwell, 
To live forever in joy and love ? 
I cannot tell. 

14 Shall I be hurled in wrath 
To the penal flames below ; 
For endless years to suffer and sin ? 
It may be so. 

" Farewell — my eyes now close 
On the light of the certain day ; 
And into the dark of death, my soul 
Plunges away." 



NEED OF A REVELATION. 105 

Who does not feel all the sympathies of his soul drawn 
forth toward the tried and struggling spirit, arguing 
with doubt, but arguing in vain. What want can be 
more trying than the want of that revelation which can 
bring life and immortality to light, and which solving the 
puzzle of our being here, points us to the realms of glory, 
and a home in heaven. With this, and only with this, 
can we hope for guidance for our stumbling steps. On 
our dark path to eternity reason alone is but a rushlight, 
and genius is but a glowworm's spark. What a question 
then, with the antecedent probabilities of divine mercy 
and human need, is this, Have we a light to cheer and 
guide us ? one that God Himself has kindled, one by the 
teachings of which the once troubled soul can exclaim : 

" But darkness and doubt are now flying away ; 

ITo longer I roam in conjecture forlorn ; 
So breaks on the traveller, faint and astray, 

The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn. 
See Truth, Love and Mercy, in triumph descending, 

And Nature, all glowing in Eden's first bloom ; 
On the cold cheek of Death, smiles and roses are blending, 

And Beauty Immortal awakes from the tomb." 



5* 



XIII. 

THE LAW OF NATURE. 

"The work of the law written in their hearts." — Rom. ii. 15. 

HAS God given a law to men ? That is, has he 
made known rules of life or action for men to 
which penalties are annexed ? 

He has unquestionably enacted what is sometimes called 
" the law of nature," that is the law which the nature or 
constitution which he has given to man, requires or 
enforces. 

Such a law results from the very fact of creation. The 
Creator is necessarily to a certain extent a legislator. 
By calling a thing into being, he determines what it is, 
how it shall be constituted, upon what it shall act, and 
how it shall be acted upon. As created it has its quali- 
ties, capacities, adaptations, or in other words, its nature, 
and the conditions or modes in which these are designed 
to act are the law of the nature of the thing. It is the 
law of the seed to germinate, of the vine to produce 
grapes, of the oak to produce acorns. 

So if you take the human body, it has its laws of health- 
ful action. The eye is for sight. The lungs are to 
breathe, the feet are to walk. This is the law of their 
creation. Their proper and healthful action is dependent 
on certain conditions, or laws of health, which must be 
met or complied with, and the penalty of non-compliance 

(106) 






THE LA W OF NA TUBE. 1 07 

is pain, disease, or feebleness. So there are physical laws 
of sobriety and temperance, the penalty of which is dis- 
sipation, suffering and infamy. These laws belong to the 
code of nature, and any man, except the fool, can read 
them by observation, and the fool reads them at last in 
his own experience as if they were written in large 
capitals. 

So there are laws which govern man's intellectual and 
moral nature. The mind must be used or it will rust. 
There is law and penalty. Certain conditions in the use 
of the intellect must be observed, or it will be made nar- 
row, or bigoted, or sophistical. The moral nature has 
its laws. Integrity is required, or distrust will be pro- 
duced, conscience will reproach, the calm of the soul will 
be broken. There must be simplicity of purpose, or one 
must be double-minded. The will must be held in check, 
or a man will become its serf and the slave of passion. 

So each faculty of mind and of the moral nature has 
its own laws. They are cut into the very constitution 
of things like the name of a temple sculptured on its 
portico. 

Every thing that exists has its peculiar constitution 
and relations. The nature of the tree or shrub governs 
its growth and development. The instincts of the brute 
govern its action. The intelligence and conscience of 
man govern, or are designed to govern his acts and 
career. 

These laws, therefore, are very diverse. Some are 
simply physical, others are moral. Some secure inevita- 
bly the desired result ; others simply impose obligation 
on the creature, impelling him, but not absolutely neces- 
sitating him to act. But in either case they are alike 
the laws of the Great Maker. No man can doubt the 



io8 LIFE LESSONS. 

fact of his legislation. Intelligent creation is ipso facto 
legislation. 

But what is the character of this law of nature as 
regards men ? It is to man's constitution that we must 
turn for an answer. This shows the design of his being, 
and the design of the Creator suggests the end which 
man is to attain. If you look at any mechanism of man, 
you find out by study, or the explanation of others, the 
use for which it was designed. That designed use deter- 
mines how it is to be employed. A spade can be used 
as a bludgeon. But plainly this was not the design of 
its maker. Man can be perverted into a chattel, a glut- 
ton, a sensualist, a knave, but evidently this was not the 
design of his Maker. The plain and safe rule of inter- 
pretation here is, that a thing or being is designed for 
the highest and most useful purpose for which it could be 
employed. It would be absurd to suppose one to invent 
a curious and complicated machine exactly fitted to sow 
or reap, which should be employed to level furrows by 
dragging it over them, when a simple bush or roller 
would do as well. So if a man lives like a brute, it does 
not follow that he was meant for a brute, or that this is 
the law of his being. If he has passions whose excessive 
indulgence would make him a glutton, a sot, or a tyrant, 
it does not follow, if it is possible for them to be checked 
and moderated, and answer a good purpose in a subordi- 
nate sphere, that they were meant for unlimited indul- 
gence, but rather the reverse. The design of the maker 
is to be learned by inquiry of what a thing is susceptible, 
or what is the highest and most important end which it 
can evidently subserve. That design, so far forth as it is 
manifest, is of the nature of law, and failure to attain it 
is of the nature of penalty. 






THE LA W OF NA TUBE. 1 09 

Here then is man made, not like a stone, subject to the 
simple law of gravitation ; not like a human machine to 
expedite the processes of industry, of science, or of art ; 
not like the brute, to be subjected to a superior will and 
intelligence, guided only by blind instinct, but with an 
intelligence that allies him to his Maker ; with a sense of 
right and wrong that enables him to sit in judgment on 
human action, others, and his own ; with a power of rea- 
son and judgment that qualifies him to trace causes to 
results, and determine the consequences of different 
courses of action ; with sagacity to perceive what is 
wisest and safest among proposed measures ; with a will 
that can carry his designs into execution, and renders 
him accountable for his acts ; with capacities and means 
to make others happy, or influence them to what is pure 
and good ; with susceptibilities for virtuous enjoyment 
infinitely superior to all the pleasure of sense ; with a 
power of thought to soar into the great realm of the un- 
seen, and power of feeling to be moved by all that is great, 
or good, or sublime in moral action ; and with such possi- 
bilities of intellectual and moral growth and development, 
that his standing point on earth seems but an eagle's 
perch for far loftier flights ; and all these wheels, all 
these complicated mechanisms of his moral being are so 
adjusted to each other, and to the sphere in which he is 
to act, that he is stupid, beyond comprehension, who does 
not respond to the sentiment of the psalmist, " I am fear- 
fully and wonderfully made f or who does not while he 
responds, stand awestruck before the majestic design of 
his Maker, sculptured as it were in legible letters in his 
own constitution. 

That design reveals law — the highest law of Nature — 
that law that should govern the purposes and aims of 



ll0 LIFE LESS OSS. 

every man. He who degrades himself by low, base, or 
selfish aims, who uses his intelligence to make himself 
only a lettered brute ; his sense of right and wrong to con- 
demn others and not judge himself ; his reason and judg- 
ment to excuse his evil or plead the cause of vice ; his 
sagacity to discern how his own selfish lust and passions 
may be gratified ; or his will to execute purposes that 
build up his despotic supremacy, on the ruin of others' in- 
dependence ; or his sensibility to the good and great as a 
foil to his own baseness of heart, such a man violates the 
very law of Nature. He has no right to pervert his 
intellect, his conscience, or his affections. He has the 
capacities which, rightly used, can approximate him to an 
angel, and he violates the law of his creation and consti- 
tution, when he uses them to assimulate him to a despot, 
or a sot, a brute or a devil. Every step in this direction 
is a step in transgression. Every leaning to such a result 
is a leaning against the sharp piercing point of the statute 
of the Eternal Lawgiver. 

Now some may object to this law, on the ground that it 
is not proclaimed. But here we take issue with them. 
We say it is proclaimed, even by the light of Nature. 
You might as well take the statute book of the state, that 
condemns your crime, with you into the cell or dungeon, 
and because of the darkness and gloom which your wick- 
edness has brought upon you, say that there is no law 
because you cannot read it. Man's sin has blinded him 
to the law of Nature, and his guilt has made its republi- 
cation by revelation necessary. But though republished, 
and more fully and clearly drawn in the Bible, it does not 
follow that it has not been proclaimed. Laws in various 
ages have been variously published, sometimes graven in 
stone, sometimes by the voice of the herald, sometimes by 



THE LA W OF NATURE. 1 1 1 

reports of others, sometimes by obscure handwriting on 
pillars, sometimes as unwritten, or common law. The law 
of Nature is the common law of the universe. It is writ- 
ten at least in the conscience. It is embodied even in 
the moral judgments we form of one another, and the man 
who complains that it is not published, and imagines that 
he has reason for what he says, only argues that his own 
sin or moral blindness has blurred and blotted the hand- 
writing till his own copy is almost or quite illegible. 

We admit that it is sometimes almost illegible. But 
the fault is not in the proclamation or publication, but 
the guilty suppression of it. This suppression, extensive, 
general, and, we may say, universal, has made a fuller 
and clearer republication important, but that republica- 
tion could not be claimed. God has graciously made it, 
but that grace was not our due. And if now by the light 
of the revised statute, we can better read the old, spelling 
it out letter by letter, we only infer, first the great evil 
of the sin that obliterated the old, and then the infinite 
obligation which is imposed by the giving of the new. 



XIV. 

THE REVEALED RULE OF LIFE. 

" Thy testimonies are wonderful." — Ps. cxix. 129. 

HAVE we in our hands an actual revelation from 
God ? Have we the authentic utterance of His 
will and character and purpose ? 

There are several works in the world that lay claim 
to the character of sacred books, but I presume no one 
who has the faintest knowledge of their real character 
would allow consideration, even for a moment, to the 
claims of any but the Bible. Some flaw — as scientific 
error, imperfect morality, absurd legends — stamps all but 
this as counterfeit. The Bible, and the Bible only, can 
plausibly challenge attention as a revelation from God. 

What is it, then ? It will help us to weigh its eviden- 
ces if we know what it is. We can understand at least 
what interest, in examining its evidences, its contents 
excite. The Bible, then, is made up of history, doctrine, 
morality or laws of duty, devotional utterances, prophecy 
and the declared purposes of God's providence and 
grace. 

It is first of all history. This is the largest element 
of the whole. Here are sixty-six separate books or 
treatises, written by nearly forty different authors, and 
their dates are spread, as near as we can judge, over the 

(112) 



THE REVEALED RULE OF LIFE. 



113 



space of fifteen centuries. The earliest writers had 
been dead more than a thousand years before the last 
took up his pen. Each was independent of the others. 
The styles are distinct, and the volume cannot have been 
forged by a single hand. Nor can it have been got up 
by collusion or conspiracy, for the different writers be- 
longed to diverse ages, and could never have met and 
consulted together. 

Yet they have written conjointly the most wonderful 
history in the world, fully as remarkable for its unity as 
for its diversity. It gives us the first, the earliest, and 
the only record that we have of the creation of the globe 
and its inhabitants. It gives us the sketch of succeeding 
centuries, and an authentic narrative of the peopling of 
the world, through a period which all other histories 
abandon to myths and fable. Nowhere else can we learn 
anything of the actual origin of the race. Nowhere else 
can we trace the original divisions and settlement of the 
human family. Nowhere else during this period can we 
feel that we tread the solid ground of reality. 

But on this common trunk of all history, a peculiar 
history is grafted. It is the history of God's dealings 
with men, and the successive steps by which He has car- 
ried forward his providential design for the restoration 
of a fallen race. Here we have the central line of march 
of the world's progress, the great highway into which all 
the lanes and by-roads of history converge. Here is the 
channel of the river of which other histories are but 
eddies, or at the best, tributary rivulets. This keeps ever 
distinctly in view the sublime object of original creation and 
subsequent redemption. Elsewhere, even from the pens 
of Gibbon and Macaulay, of Bancroft and Prescott and 
Motley, we have only fragments chipped off from the 



u + LIFE LESSONS. 

obelisk of time. Here we have time's very statue flung 
out in bold relief on the background of eternity. Other 
writers give us links, but here by prophecy and history 
combined, we have the great chain which reaches down 
from the staple of creation to the final regeneration and 
completed judgment of the world. Men are learning at 
last that the cross of Calvary is the pivot of the destiny 
of the race. Christianity is the motive and moulding 
power of the world. The real history of time is just 
the history of the process by which it has been evolved 
and brought to bear upon individuals and nations. The 
forays of a Nimrod, the conquests of an Alexander, or 
the triumphs of a Cassar, are but episodes, incidental 
chapters, subordinate in importance to Abraham's faith, 
Moses' leadership, Daniel's career, or the labors of Christ 
and his apostles. The Jewish theocracy was the scaffold- 
ing to the Gospel temple. The history of their erection 
gives us the channel current of time, while other writers 
have busied themselves with the waves or foam. 

Here then, is the most wonderful and unique history — 
the true history of man — the true history of the race — 
the true history of its relation of God. From first to 
last there is one object in view — and with this the recov- 
ery of the world through the mediatorship of the prom- 
ised Messiah, before us : every fragment of this volume 
takes its place in a pre-arranged and divine harmony. 
The book of Leviticus is no superfluity. The ceremonial 
law prefigured the facts of our redemption. The book 
of Ruth is not an episode. It is an important link in 
the chain by which the geneological descent of the Mes- 
siah is traced in accordance with prophecy. The book 
of Daniel is no digression. It sets up a notable land- 
mark in our progress from Eden to Calvary. 



THE ME VEAL ED RULE OF LIFE. 115 

Thus, sift it as you will, the Bible history has from 
first to last a wonderful unity, not formal, not paraded 
or obtrusive, but real and radical. It is written by 
nearly two score authors of different ages, and yet but 
for the varied style, it would seem that a single mind 
guided the pen. The sublime simplicity of the books of 
Moses, the rigid annalism of Judges, the ceremonial pre- 
ciseness of Chronicles, the graphic imagery of the Pro- 
phets, the simple narrations of the Gallilean fishermen, 
and the earnest, glowing utterances of Paul — all blend 
together in harmony like the colors of the rainbow in 
simple light, so that one idea, running along beneath all 
forms of expression and all shades of thought, masters 
unconsciously annalist and preacher, poet, seer and evan- 
gelist, insomuch that they elucidate in wonderful corres- 
pondence the same great theme, conspire unwittingly to 
unfold the same great plan by which infinite wisdom is 
carrying forward to its conclusion the purposes of human 
redemption. 

Where is there another such history as this — so grand 
in conception, so perfect in outline, so triumphant in con- 
clusion — where each book, though a fragment in itself, 
fills its own niche in the perfect structure, and all har- 
monize together like the varied limbs of a living creature, 
instinct with the same spirit and vitalized by the same 
energy? Who is not constrained almost to exclaim al- 
ready, Human pens may have written it, but the Eternal 
Mind was its author ! 

But the Bible is not mere history. It presents the 
doctrines of religion, the facts of theology, the elements 
of the grandest and most perfect system of religion ever 
propounded to man — one that has no rival, or the shadow 
of a rival in all human speculation. The most elaborate 



u6 LIFE LE880N8. 

systems of Deism, or natural religion, are to the Gospel 
system only as a worm to a man, only as the wigwam of 
a say age to a civilized home. This system, historically 
presented in detached portions, but harmonious to the eye 
of the devout student who takes it into view in its proper 
connections, is simple but sublime. A child shall appre- 
hend it, while an angel cannot comprehend it. " God is 
a spirit !" what a flood of light does this throw on the 
nature of God and the worship he requires ! " Our 
Father which art in heaven !" what lessons are unfolded 
in a word concerning the character of God and our rela- 
tions to him ! " By nature the children of wrath !" " The 
carnal mind enmity against God !" " The heart deceit- 
ful above all things, and desperately wicked !" What 
volumes of meaning concerning man's apostasy from God, 
and its bitter fruits ! " Our hearts condemn us, and God 
is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things !" 
What a humiliating exposure of our condition as trans- 
gressors of the divine law, and expectants of deserved 
vengeance ! " God so loved the world as to give his 
only begotten and well-beloved Son !" " While we were 
yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly!'' Who can 
fathom the grandeur of this demonstration of divine grace 
toward us, this wonderful display of infinite compassion 
for the guilty. " He is able to save to the uttermost all 
that come to God by him !" How amazing the extent, 
how glorious the sufficiency of that mediatorship by which 
Christ becomes our perfect Redeemer! And then a 
judgment to come, the blessedness of heaven, the retri- 
butions of the world of woe — how they stand forth sub- 
limely conspicuous on the pages of the Bible, casting into 
shadow all the high thoughts of the proud, all the splen- 
dor and pomp, all the crowns and dominions of earth ! 



THE REVEALED RULE OF LIFE. 117 

How wonderful the volume that thus boldly presumes to 
draw the curtain of the eternal world, and lets frail, 
toiling, trifling, dying man walk on in the full blaze of 
the infinite glories, so that if he will, his pathway to the 
grave shall be irradiated with the light of immortality, 
and the night of Probation's day shall be the twilight 
dawning of heaven ! 

But the Bible is also a code of law, a system of morals, 
claiming the divine sanction for its injunctions. And 
here, simply as a moral text-book, it has in all literature, 
not a peer or rival. The skeptic has acknowledged its 
superiority, and with the sagacious wisdom of a Franklin, 
the polite suggestions of a Chesterfield, the teachings of 
Socrates and Seneca, codes of law, codes of honor, sen- 
tences, maxims and proverbs, all at his command, has 
thrown them aside that he might put into the hands of 
his children the words of the Author of the Sermon on 
the Mount. The instincts of his affection were truer 
than the elaborate pleadings of his perverted reason. As 
you read this book, you feel all evil rebuked, as if an all- 
seeing eye were looking right through the soul, till all 
wicked designs, fraudful deception and selfish schemes 
are searched out by its beams, and the very chambers of 
sheltered darkness and sin have all their imagery ex- 
posed. This book — the good love it ; the bad hate it. 
To the one it is a guide, to the other a detector ; so that 
in spite of themselves, the instincts of sin, strangely unite 
with the sympathies of holiness to attest its power ; the 
first trembling at its rebukes, the last strengthened by 
its sanctions. 

Of the prophecies of this book, I have not space here 
to speak at length. But when you read them, and note 
the austere standard of duty, which the overpowering 



n8 LIFE LESSONS. 

glory of the divine character portrayed, the thunders of 
rebuke that roll forth with each succeeding sentence, the 
stern denunciations of iniquity that they utter, the glow- 
ing and superhuman imagery with which they are often 
clothed, you feel that either these are expressions of the 
sublimest impudence of which man could be guilty, or the 
very messages that have come down to the world from 
the throne of God. 

But what shall be said of the devotional spirit and 
breathing of this volume ? In this respect it is neither 
surpassed nor equalled by any other. Good men have 
written good books — books that set forth truth and duty 
eloquently — that kindle the soul to flaming zeal, or bow 
it in deepest self-abhorrence — that inspire it with Godly 
aims, arouse the energies of its consecrated powers as 
the notes of drum or trumpet stir the soul to harsher 
deeds of arms. I would depreciate none of them. I 
would bless God for such messengers of piety and devo- 
tion as Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress," Baxter's " Saint's 
Rest" and " Dying Thoughts," Howe's " Blessedness of 
the Righteous," Rutherford's Letters, Romaine on Faith, 
Legh Richmond's Tracts, and scores of others, and I 
would lend them new wings to visit on angel errands 
the homes of God's sorrowing or toiling ones ; but all of 
them are only — in the presence of the Bible — like planets 
around a central sun. They shine only by a borrowed 
light, and if I must have but one — I say give me that 
which makes my day rather than that which merely 
adorns my night ; give me the diadem instead of the single 
gem. For who can go up with Abraham to Moriah, or 
with Moses to Sinai and Pisgah, or hear David sing in 
memory of his own past, " The Lord is my shepherd," or 
pray the words the Saviour taught, or lean with the 



THE REVEALED RULE OF LLFE. 



119 



beloved disciple on Jesus' bosom at the supper, or yield 
himself to the upward currents of devotion poured forth 
in the aspiring praise and supplication of the Apostle 
Paul, and not feel himself wafted above the world, borne 
as it were on eagle wings to a height where the eloquence 
of a Chatham or Webster, the genius of a Milton, the 
philosophy of a Bacon, shrink to the sparkling insignifi- 
cance of sand grains gazed at from the mountain's brow ? 
Our sweetest lyrics have been gathered from the Hebrew 
Psalms. One of our greatest statesmen pronounced that 
beginning, " I love thy kingdom, Lord," unsurpassed in 
literature ; and where can the bowed, crushed, broken 
heart find such expressions as in the Penitential Psalm ! 
And now is it wonderful that such a volume should 
have had such a history — that it should stand for cen- 
turies as it stands to-day, as powerful as it is venerable — 
the spiritual battery to electrify nations and the world — 
the moral lighthouse to illuminate the career of individ- 
uals and of governments — the lever to lift fallen humanity 
from the pit of its misery — the guide-book of the erring 
and the lost, to bring them back to their Father's house ? 
It helps us to know the book better — to know what it 
is — if we turn and see what it has been, where it has gone 
and what is has done. It has enlightened ignorance, 
dispelled doubt, chased away superstitious fear, and been 
a fountain of light and hope to the despairing. It has 
transformed character, changed the lion to the lamb, the 
brute to the angel, and the humbling confession of the 
penitent publican has been wrung by it from the tongue 
of the desperado in guilt, the felon in his cell, and the 
blasphemer breathing out once the vernacular of hell. 
Men whose vileness has been proof against all human 
persuasion have been subdued by the power of the cross. 



120 LIFE LESSONS. 

Robust and hard-hearted iniquity has been made to trem- 
ble like Felix before Paul. Lips slimy with oaths have 
become redolent of praise. Tongues loaded with impre- 
cation have caught the music of the new song, and over 
the form of the prostrate persecutor angels have bent, 
to soar aloft with the exulting announcement, " behold 
he prayeth." 

Human eloquence has never won such victories, or ex- 
ulted in such triumphs as have been achieved by the liv- 
ing words of the Bible. It has slain the enmity of the 
human heart. It has disarmed the persecutor and sub- 
dued the strength of malice by a stronger love. It has 
gone into dens of vice and pollution and turned the foul 
spirits out. It has entered the temple of the soul and 
overturned the tables of the money-changers, and restored 
the prostrate and neglected altar. It has laid conse- 
crating hands on the faculties and powers of the whole 
man, till, instead of the slave of selfish gain, he became 
" eyes to the blind and feet to the lame." It has touched 
the indolent spirit and made it flame forth with active, 
self-denying love. It has sent those whose educated 
tastes led them to spurn all contact with vulgarity, into 
streets, and lanes, and alleys, and hovels, where they 
might stretch out to the wretched and degraded the 
hand of sympathy and of brotherhood. It has evoked 
the sublimest illustrations of moral heroism, and you may 
safely credit the generous self-denial, the large-hearted 
charity, the bravest and the gentlest deeds that have en- 
riched the story of the past, to the power of the Bible. 
Evangelists, missionaries, martyrs, drank from this in- 
spiring fountain, and along every nerve thrilled the new 
energy which made them more than conquerors amid hard- 
ship, peril, dungeon and the flames. 



THE REVEALED RULE OF LLFE. 121 

No other book has ever wrought out such results. Into 
the solitary bosom, into the social circle, and into the 
broad sphere of our common humanity, it has borne the 
whispered message of the angel of the covenant. As it 
spoke, Care smoothed his wrinkled brow, Pain forgot his 
agony, Age shook off the burden of years, Sorrow dis- 
cerned rainbow hues, memorials of the everlasting cov- 
enant in its falling tear drops, while Passion hushed its 
raging waves, and the dying sufferer seemed to catch 
echoes from the music of the golden harps mingling with 
the pathos of love's last earthly farewell. Human affec- 
tion borrowed an unutterable sweetness and grace as les- 
sons from this book subdued every tone, while the timid 
spirit, through the inbreathed energy of divine truth, be- 
came more than a Leonidas, became a Christian martyr. 

Where is the institution of humanity or benevolence 
not indebted to it ? Where is the Christian state which 
it has not brought under infinite obligation ? Where is 
the legislation that it has not leavened, the schools and 
colleges and asylums which it has not nurtured ? It has 
been the strength of the world's strongest men. It has 
furnished the watchwords and mottoes that have kindled 
the enthusiasm of the Christian heart. The stars and 
stripes? Here is the star of Bethlehem, the glorious 
salvation of Him by whose stripes we are healed. The 
Bible has been Protean, not to curse but to bless. It has 
been the Christian's guide-book, the soldier's armor, the 
sufferer's consolation, the believer's charter to a heavenly 
birthright. It was Luther's armory, Baxter's panoply, 
Bunyan's library, Knox's battle-axe, the pilgrim's guide- 
book, and everywhere for all time the herald of pure 
learning, social morals, just laws and religious life. It lit 
the star in the west that guided the Mayflower. It sent 
6 



122 LIFE LESSONS. 

Elliott and Brainerd to the savages of the wilderness, 
and over broad continents and the islands of the sea it has 
kindled the pioneer watchfires of the millennial advent. 

But, is this all ? Nay, there is scarcely a great writer, 
or great thinker, or great actor of these last centuries, 
whose debt to the Bible, in a mere intellectual point of 
view, is not immense. It has quickened the life of na- 
tions, and given to enterprise a new, if not original, im- 
pulse. Milton studied its grandest lyrics before he 
penned his own immortal song. Bacon gathered its 
brightest gems to set in the frame of his own golden 
thought. Addison in every page betrays his obligation 
to its lofty morality as well as its majestic diction. Cow- 
per suffused his lines with odors from the bruised flowers 
of Gethsemane, and who doubts that Washington was a 
braver and abler leader, and Wilberforce a more reliable 
statesman, and Chalmers a mightier thinker, through the 
power of this book? 

Thus through literature, legislation, moral reform and 
all industrial enterprise its spirit has gone abroad. Not 
a sail unfurled upon the sea but owes something to its 
influence. Not a law on the statute book but has felt 
its shaping pressure. Not an iron wire that thrills with 
the mandate of a nation's will, or an iron track which 
bands a continent together, that exists independent of the 
impulse which the Bible has ministered. 

And how endeared it is to millions of hearts ! It is 
cherished with unutterable affection by those who would 
feel its loss like the blotting of the sun from heaven. 
They heard it read in early years by saintly lips now 
sealed in the silence of the grave. Its very words have 
that familiar yet solemn tone which distinguishes them 
from all others. They have been preached in the pulpit, 



TEE REVEALED RULE OF LIFE. 123 

they have been paraphrased in song. The music of their 
speech has been heard at the bridal and at the burial, in 
the sanctuary and by the fireside. The volume itself 
was, perhaps, the very earliest memorial which affection 
bestowed, as hope gives the fond assurance that it shall 
be the last to fall from the trembling hand. A solemn 
awe, a reverential fear attended its first perusal, and 
every subsequent call to listen to its words has confirmed 
the impression that was then made. Its sentences are 
imbedded in the memory. Its promises are enshrined in 
the heart. What childhood repeated, age loves to re- 
hearse, and graven on countless tombstones are traced 
the holy texts " that teach the rustic moralist to die," or 
speak the sacred hope of blessedness beyond the grave. 

Thus highly is it prized. And is it all a mistake ? Is 
this book the delusion of the soul ? Is it a false guide ? 
Is it a forged charter ? "We may, at least, presume not, 
so long as, 

" What none can prove a forgery, may be true, 
What none but bad men wish exploded, must. 11 



XV. 

TERMS OF THE LIFE ETERNAL. 

"What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" — Mabk x. 17. 

WHAT a wonderful book the Bible is ! The mar- 
vel of literature, the text-book of the world ! 
Where is there anything like it in all the writings of 
men ? It is the only book extant that can be called a 
book for all, or that is equally adapted to all. You put 
it into the child's hand, and he grows old reading it, 
but it has new charms to the last, and is unexhausted 
still. The hoary head bends over it — not less intent than 
the eyes that gleam out under the fair young brow — 
tracing lines that have been traced a hundred times, but 
which are still as fresh and bright as ever. Childish sim^ 
plicity is taught the deepest truths, and readily appre- 
hends them, while separate books or even chapters of the 
volume task the ingenuity and exhaust the learning of 
deep-read scholars. The peasant pores over it in his 
hovel and the nobleman in his palace, and it is alike a 
teacher for both. The thankful heart finds in it the lan- 
guage of praise, and the penitent heart adopts its forms 
of contrition. The soldier reads it in the camp, or in 
the intervals of battle, and the widow reads in it as she 
conies back from the new-made grave, " The Lord is thy 
husband." The patriarch of four-score reads it bv his 

(124) 



TERMS OF THE LIFE ETERNAL. 



!*5 



fireside, and the lisping prattler on his knee is charmed 
by its stories from the old man's lips. How could you 
teach youth a simpler petition than our Lord's prayer, 
and how could the profoundest learning frame anything 
more comprehensive, appropriate or sublime ? 

Suppose you invited all the wisdom and genius of the 
world to-day to combine their energies to produce a text- 
book of morals and religion which should go alike to the 
Englishman's castle and the Hottentot's kraal, with Kane 
to the Polar Seas, and Livingston to African deserts, that 
the professor of law should tell his students to read for 
its style, and the very infidel should teach his child for 
its sublime morality — a book that should do more than 
the wisdom of all codes to shape the legislation of na- 
tions, and more than all science to overthrow the temples 
and the idols of pagan nations — a book that a mother 
should put in her boy's knapsack when he goes forth to 
the scenes of battle, and to which she turns herself for 
consolation when she learns that he sleeps with the un- 
tombed dead — a book that shall guide the footsteps of 
erring youth, and pillow the hope of the departing spirit 
— a book that shall cheer the prisoner in his cell, and 
that shall raise up Judsons for the heathen, and Howards 
for jails, and Wilberforces for the enslaved African — a 
book in which a Newton, a Herschel, a Brewster, and a 
Mitchel shall devoutly confess they discover truths more 
glorious than their telescopes reveal, and which shall 
have power to change the savage to a man — and does 
any one imagine that the ripest civilization of the nine- 
teenth century, garnering up all the lore and experience 
of ages could produce such a book ? Philosophers read 
Lord Bacon, and scholars study Plato, and in these men 
you find the ripest thought of centuries and of generations ; 



i 2 6 LIFE LESSONS. 

but what are they to the laborer or the school-boy — nay, 
how their brightest thoughts die out as a meteor-flash, 
when you read the wonderful parables of the man of 
Nazareth, or listen to the utterances of his Sermon on 
the Mount ! 

No wonder that the book is cherished. No wonder 
that precious memories of it are twined about the past, 
and that the brightest rainbow hues of the future are 
borrowed from the hopes it inspires. It is associated 
with all that is dearest to the human heart. The old 
family record grows almost sacred, interleaved with 
these pages. The dying parent goes to this fountain to 
find words of farewell counsel to those he leaves behind. 
Here is what we repeat at the bridal, here is what we 
read at the burial. Here is the chapter for family devo- 
tion, and here the text for the sanctuary. The richest 
bequest of parental piety comes from the teachings of this 
book, and with the last memorial of the departed we trace 
on the tombstone some " holy text" which it has enshrined. 

What is the meaning of all this in connection with a 
book penned largely by shepherds and fishermen? There 
is but one answer. Here is God's text-book for the race, • 
adapted to every capacity and to every lot. This tree 
of wisdom beneath whose shadow we gather to learn 
lessons beyond all that was taught in Platonic groves, is 
a tree of God's planting. It is rooted in the soil of the 
distant centuries. It spreads its fibres beneath Sinai and 
Calvary. The Spirit of God breathes through its whis- 
pering leaves, and the songs of prophets, and apostles, 
and martyrs yet wake living echoes beneath its branches. 
The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations, 
and its fruit is the fruit of the tree of life. Humanity 
itself pants for a place beneath its shade. 



TERMS OF THE LIFE ETERNAL. 127 

And what is the object of it ? Not to teach art or 
science or philosophy — not to please or entertain, but to 
educate the soul for heaven. It answers for every man 
the question " Good master, what shall I do that I may 
inherit eternal life ?" It answers it for the Jew. It an- 
swers it for the pagan. It answers it for the Christian. 
Different classes want different text-books, but here all 
are taught from one. The shepherd boy and the King 
of Israel, the fisherman and the pupil of Gamaliel, Nico- 
demus and Zaccheus, Milton and the ploughboy, Job and 
the jailor of Philippi, may take their place on the same 
benches, and say alike, " A greater than Solomon is 
here I" 

Just as a well-arranged text-book carries a pupil on 
step by step to the highest problems, so God by revela- 
tion has educated the race. The types and shadows of 
the old ceremonial law were the alphabet of the atone- 
ment — the rudiments of the Gospel. In the profoundest 
sense the law was a schoolmaster, a child-guide to lead 
us to Christ. The commandment of duty comes logically 
before the sense of transgression, and with the confes- 
sion of sin comes that cry for mercy which the Gospel 
answers. 

And as it is with the race, so it is with the individual. 
If the Jews were taught as children, so is the doubting, 
trembling inquirer even now. Does he ask, What shall I 
do to inherit eternal life? he is told to keep the command- 
ments. This is first of all. Why ? Because it is wisest. 
Because no man is capable of seeing the beauty and 
grace, and feeling the preciousness of the Gospel till he 
has tried to render obedience, and has been humbled 
into the dust by his confessed failure. He needs to know 
the law — to feel its spirituality, to understand its extent, 



i 2 8 LIFE LESSONS. 

to know what it requires, and to feel how far he has 
come short. It was to this end, that Christ would sweep 
aside from the eyes of the young man his blinding self- 
flattery, and show him to himself. For this he gives him 
to understand that his wealth is yet his idol, dethroning 
and shutting God out of his heart. He is not fitted to 
follow the Saviour, till he can learn to sacrifice all else 
to do it. 

This is the first great lesson. In vain is the Gospel 
preached to you if you refuse to learn this. We say, if 
you will attain eternal life by your own exertions, keep 
the commandments. You are bound to do it. Every 
fibre of your conscience responds to the claim — thrills 
with the sense of obligation. You are bound to love God 
with your whole heart, to keep His commandments — to 
seek His glory. You are bound to hold all you have, and 
are subject to His command. You are bound to subdue 
every unhallowed and selfish passion, to drive out every 
evil thought, to love your neighbor as yourself. You are 
bound to have a heart holy and pure and free from sin. 
You have no more right to do wrong, to speak or do, or 
even think or wish, an evil thing, than an angel in heaven. 
The very same law binds you that binds the seraph, that 
binds the highest archangel. Back of all the sophistries 
of the heart, beneath all the apologies with which con- 
science is overlaid, you can read upon it, as if graven 
with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond — Keep 
the commandments. Breathe out your soul in prayer. 
Make your life a hymn of praise. Let all your affections 
be set on things above. Live as Christ did. Carry 
heaven's own atmosphere of holiness and charity with 
you to your daily tasks. Turn every hour into a season 
of worship, of holy service. Act, speak, think always 



TERMS OF TEE LIFE ETERNAL. 129 

just as you should to be ready to stand at the bar of a 
heart-searching God. Make every moment of these years 
a fitting introduction to that glorious sequel, " Well done, 
good and faithful servant." 

Why not ? Are you not bound to do it ? Has not 
God a right to demand it ? Has He not in fact de- 
manded it ? Can He be God, the God of his creatures, 
and require less? What is the use of a conscience 
if it does not say Amen to the justice of this com- 
mand? 

Begin this obedience, then. Begin it now. Do you 
fancy it is an easy thing ? Try it ! Commit your whole 
soul to it, and see whether you are ever like to reach 
heaven. Ah ! then you will see what you never saw, per- 
haps, before. You will find that you have an evil heart 
of unbelief, of disobedience, of rebellion. You will find 
that the law is wide and broad. You will find the truth 
of St. Paul's words, " By the deeds of the law shall no 
flesh be justified." Every step of your effort will carry 
you lower down in your own self-esteem. You will see 
what you have done — what you have failed to do, what 
disobedience you are guilty of, what fatal infirmity clings 
to your sin-palsied soul. You will be brought to the 
verge of despair. You will be cast down into the dust 
before God. You will see the just terrors of a holy, but 
a violated law. You will begin to feel what a trans- 
gressor deserves. 

But there is no Gospel hope for you till you are brought 
to that point — till that holy law you have broken has 
struck your hand loose from all your false props, so that 
no human hope is left you on which to lean. Then pos- 
sibly you may be ready to cry out — " Lord, save or I 
perish I" Then you may exclaim, with the tremulous 
6* 



i 3 o LIFE LE8S0N8. 

emotion of a sinner just ready to sink to hell, " God be 
merciful to me a sinner." 

Ah ! this is the extremity to which every sinner needs 
to be brought. Then, perhaps, he will plead for mercy. 
Then, perhaps, angels bending over him with agonizing 
sympathy, may shout back to heaven the glad intelli- 
gence — " Behold, he prayeth !" 

Then, too, you will be prepared to appreciate the Gos- 
pel. You will see the love of God, and his readiness to 
forgive, manifested in that provision by which He can be 
just, and yet the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. 
And it may be that then the glory of Redemption will 
burst upon your view. It may be that Christ will ap- 
pear — no longer as " a root out of dry ground without 
form or comeliness" but — as " the chief among ten thou- 
sand, and the one altogether lovely," and you will no 
longer wonder that Paul should exclaim', overwhelmed 
by the grandeur and grace of the scheme of Redemption, 
" God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our 
Lord Jesus Christ." 



XVI. 

THE FATAL LACK. 

" One thing thou lackest." — Mark x. 21. 

ONE thing thou lackest! One thing! Only one? 
What is that among many? Perhaps it is one 
among fifty, all of equal importance, but neither essential, 
and so may be dropped out of account. 

But sometimes the lack of just one thing, is virtually 
the lack of all. A ship on the ocean might lose a sail or 
even a mast, and still keep on its way. But what if it 
should lose its rudder ? One might chip off great blocks 
from a large granite arch, and the pile might still stand 
firm ; but what if it should lose its keystone ? So a man 
may lack many things. He may have a scant wardrobe. 
He may lack many a comfort. He may be exposed to 
hardships, but what if he lacks religious faith ? What 
if he lacks the warrant to say, God and Heaven are mine ! 
Is it not like the loss of the rudder ? Is it not like the 
loss of the keystone ? 

The one thing which meets man's great want, which 
alone fits him to live and prepares him to die, without 
which he is orphaned from hope, and with which no 
calamity can more than temporarily depress him, the one 
thing which leads him to live with a right purpose, which 
consecrates all his aims, which gives him a constant 
refuge, which gilds with light the darkest cloud, which 

UBi) 



3 2 



LIFE LESSONS. 



brings relief to fear and foreboding, which brings with it 
down to the darkened stormy spirit the light and peace 
of God, which makes the weary journey of life a pilgrim- 
age to heaven, and which alone teaches the triumphant 
song, " death ! where is thy sting ? grave ! where is 
thy victory ?" — the one thing that does all this, is religi- 
ous faith, the faith by which being justified, we have peace 
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

It is but one thing, but how many ends does it sub- 
serve ! The light of the sun is but one thing, yet what 
would the world be without it, but a drear, barren, fro- 
zen desert ? It thaws the ice. It softens the clod. It 
kindles life in the sleeping seed. It calls up the grass 
blade. It opens the bud. It spreads out the leaf. It 
ripens the harvest, and it cheers all nature and all the 
scenes of human life with its genial beams. What that 
is to this visible world, that the light of the glory of God 
in the face of Jesus is to the redeemed soul. Will you 
put out that light ; or will you thut yourself from it ? 
Yet without that faith which a lost and ruined sinner is 
called to exercise in the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour, 
he shuts out by the clouds of his guilt those beams of 
love and grace which alone will thaw his cold and frozen 
heart, and turn it into the Eclen of peace and holiness. 

So the air you breathe is but one thing. Yet what 
would life be without it ? You would only gasp and die ! 
Every thing would sink to the motionless repose of the 
grave. In one instant the earth would be wrapped in 
the pall of death. Yet what is the soul without the 
atmosphere of faith and prayer ? 

M Prayer is the Christian's vital breath, 
The Christian's native air." 



THE FATAL LACK. 133 

Let him lack that alone, and of what avail is all else ? 
A man rich, and wise, and learned, and honored, and 
robed, and sceptered if you please, that cannot pray ! — 
who denies himself the atmosphere of spiritual life, — ■ 
whose instinctive longings make him gasp for the unseen 
blessedness, but who gasps only to die ! 

The lack of one thing then may be a fatal lack ! It 
may be as that of a tree without roots, a desert without 
water, a house without foundations, a painting without 
colors, a state without laws, a world without a God ! 

Religious faith, though but one thing, implies much. 
It implies knowledge of God, the sense of guilt, repent- 
ance, faith in Christ as the only Saviour, a new heart, 
pardon, peace, and tbe hope of eternal life. It may be 
compared to a crown, with all these jewels in it. The 
lack of one is, for the most part, the lack of all. What 
is it then to lose the crown itself? 

Without religion, or religious faith, you have no proper 
sense of your condition and guilt in the sight of God. If 
you had, you would not continue in it. But what means 
this lack ? 

A man unused to the cold of the polar regions sinks 
clown under it, becomes almost or quite insensible. He 
feels an irresistible inclination to sleep. You know his 
danger and what do you do ? You try to rouse him. 
You tell him to sleep is to die. He needs to know and 
realize his danger, or he is lost. Is it not so with the 
sinner? He is disinclined to bestir himself, to awake, 
to repent. He would be let alone, and sink to lethargy. 
What is the result ? 

So without religion, there is no repentance. And what 
is a sinner without repentance ? You visit a prisoner in 
his cell. He is guilty and depraved. You seek to soften 



*34 



LIFE LESSONS. 



his hard heart. You array before him the features of 
his crime. But you make no impression. You feel that 
that iron insensibility is a coat of mail wrapped about 
his sin, and while it remains unpierced, you have no hope 
of him. 

But are not you a sinner against the Majesty on high ? 
And has your heart never been melted in shame and sor- 
row under it ? Have you never thought of that wonder- 
ful, infinite goodness of your heavenly Father against 
which you have sinned ? Have you refused to look on 
that infinite loveliness and gentleness that have been 
arrayed before you from early years ? Has nothing, not 
even the love of Jesus, or the pathos of that deathless 
affection exhibited on the cross, been enough to win your 
heart ? Must we not say, in vain is all else, genius, art, 
energy, worldly blessings, while that heart, hard as the 
granite, is impervious to the love of God ? 

Again, faith in Christ as the only Saviour is a necessity, 
the one thing needful. A man, we will suppose, has 
fallen into a deep pit. He cannot climb up its steep 
sides ; he cannot contrive by any art of his own to escape. 
But from above a rope ladder is let down to him, evi- 
dently by some friendly hand. He sees no one, but he 
hears a voice calling to him, and telling him to lay hold 
of it, and climb up by it. What shall he do ? What 
must he do ? Suppose he should call out, will it hold me ? 
— and gets no answer. Suppose he waits long, and watches 
to see whether it will be withdrawn. How you stand 
ready to rebuke his folly, and tell him, linger not ; it is 
your only hope. 

But sin has plunged every one of us into the pits of 
guilt and hopeless condemnation, from which there is no 
escape by any art or device of our own. We have fallen 



THE FATAL LACK. 135 

to the depths of guilt, of ingratitude and disobedience, 
from which we can be delivered only by help from above. 
How we are constrained to look up and see if any one 
appears to help us ! And while we watch, behold a lad- 
der let down to us, a ladder shaped as if from the cross, 
and a voice is heard bidding us cling to it, and climb by 
it. Is it rejected ? What a lack there is of this obedi- 
ent faith! We are left without atonement, without a 
Saviour, without help or relief, and sink only to despair. 

Again. Pardon is needed. A man becomes a crimi- 
nal or a traitor, and so is outlawed. He shrinks away in 
fear of apprehension. What is necessary to calm and 
disperse his fears but pardon ? And have not all of us 
incurred the guilt of rebellion against the King of kings ? 
Is it not written, he that believeth not, is condemned 
already ? But upon a man without religion, or religious 
faith, that condemnation still abides. Nothing but the 
grace of a pardoning God can ever take it away. But 
to lack pardon, to remain here and drift on to Eternity 
and the judgment seat unforgiven, to have the load of 
guilt still resting with crushing weight upon the soul 
whenever it ventures to think, or is made to feel, what 
can compensate for all this ? There is the 1 ^ guilty one, 
under sentence of the court. See him, while the words 
keep ringing their echoes in his ear, trying to master and 
control himself ! What will all else avail him ? Well- 
born, well-bred, gifted with genius and taste, with friends, 
that yet plead for him in vain, with wealth that yet will 
not buy his ransom ; what does all this avail without 
pardon ? 

What is the lack of religious faith then but the lack of 
what is vital, of what you need most, the sense of your con- 
dition as a sinner, a penitent spirit ; the faith that can say 



136 LIFE LESSONS. 

Christ is mine ; peace with God your Maker ; the sense 
of pardoning love, and the hope of immortal blessedness ? 
These constitute the life of the soul, and how does Scrip- 
ture describe your condition except as that one dead in 
trespasses and sins ? 

One thing ! But who can tell its importance ? You 
stand by the bier of one you loved. You lean down over 
the coffin lid. What do you see ? The form and features, 
the same that have long been familiar, all are there. 
There is the brow calm, but still suggestive of the thoughts 
that once glowed beneath it. There is the eye, closed 
indeed, but the same that once beamed with love. There 
are the lips that once breathed forth the music of speech 
and the tones of affection. But though you call there is 
no answer, though you g?.ze there is no answering smile ! 
What does it mean ? One thing is lacking. Only one — 
but that is life. 

Here is an emblem of the soul without faith. Is it an 
emblem of your soul ? Is it true of you that you have 
not the life of God in you ? Can you be content with 
such a lack ; you who labor to supply the ten thousand 
wants of your perishing body ; you that spare no pains 
to secure a single comfort ; you to whom the Lord of Life 
comes with the offer to supply your greatest need ? 

Are you amid these solemn privileged scenes an atten- 
dant as it were, at your soul's funera! ? Oh that you 
might heed now His words, the words of Him who once 
by the bier of the dead, said, Arise ! 



XVII. 

LIFE FROM THE DEAD. 

" The power of God to salvation." — Rom. i. 16. 

NOT long since I heard a man describe the manner in 
which he arrested a thief who attempted by night 
to rob his money drawer. The criminal was a young man 
whom he had befriended, and whose character, till that 
time, had been regarded as reputable. When detected, 
he begged piteously that he might not be exposed. But 
he was given over to the police and lodged in prison. The 
man whom he had attempted to rob went the next morn- 
ing to see him, and he found him a picture of despair. 
His pale lips, his tortured features, his agonizing look, 
told of the terrible anguish that he was enduring. 

Surely it was a fearful sight. The man who had been 
ready to shoot him down on the spot when he arrested 
him, was melted to pity. Every revengeful feeling was 
gone. But he knew not what to do. He wished to be 
merciful, and yet he felt that he must not defraud justice. 
He wanted, if possible, to save the young criminal, and 
restore him to the paths of integrity and usefulness. He 
could refuse to appear against him, but the question 
was — would this answer ? It might save him from being 
sentenced to prolonged imprisonment, and from attendant 
disgrace, but would it make him that he should be — 
would it save him ? 

(137) 



138 LIFE LESSONS. 

There were two things that he needed — to be saved 
from condemnation, and to be saved from himself, and a 
complete salvation would include both. If, released from 
prison, he should carry back with him into society all 
the vices of the past, it would only be to plunge into 
deeper ruin. The loss of character and self-respect and 
self-control ; the habits of evil, strengthened by indul- 
gence and familiarity with sin — all would combine to 
precipitate his fate. 

Thus we see that if a man has done evil, two things are 
necessary to his recovery — deliverance from the con- 
demnation which that wickedness brings with it, and 
deliverance from the wickedness itself. Both are neces- 
sary to a complete salvation, and that complete salvation 
is what every sinner needs. 

In the first place, sin is the violation of law, and that 
violation calls for sentence and penalty. This is the 
universal rule. In God's domain, penalty, is just as sure 
as sin. It may be speedy, or it may be slow, but it is 
sure to come. Just as sure as the seed ripens to the 
harvest, just as sure as the stone falls to the earth when 
you let go your hold of it, just so sure is the penalty of 
violated law. All nature and all history are alike 
crowded with the evidence and the warnings of this 
truth. If frost will wither leaf and flower, if dissipation 
will ruin health, if lack of principle will incur contempt 
and loss of character, every violation of God's statutes is 
sure to be visited with judgment. Human courts may 
not take the matter up. Public opinion may overlook it. 
The guilty deed may be buried in darkness — it may have 
been done by stealth, without a human witness ; but it 
cannot finally escape. The soul will witness against 
itself. Memory will keep the guilty record. The hour 









LIFE FROM THE DEAD. i 39 

of reflection will come at last, and if a too early death 
adjourns it over to the unseen world it will be only — so 
all earthly analogies teach us — to make the final reckon- 
ing more terrible. 

Besides, no sin, no evil thought or desire can escape 
the notice or fail to meet the disapprobation of God. It 
cannot escape his notice, for to his eye every thought and 
feeling is as palpable as the hills and rocks are to us. 
It cannot escape his disapprobation, for everything — 
every moral act — is to him either good or evil, either to 
be approved or disapproved. It is, therefore, forever 
under his judgment. And that judgment, covering every 
deed of life, is an eternal judgment. It is the judgment 
of an eternal God — the same yesterday, to-day and for- 
ever. So that he that believeth not is condemned 
already. Sin implies condemnation. 

And what is the condemnation that God pronounces 
on sin ? It is the condemnation of the law against every 
violation of it. It is the sentence due to a disregard of 
the end for which man was made ; due to treason against 
God's authority ; due to the abuse of his goodness ; due 
to the contempt of his mercy ; due to the debasement and 
degradation, and ruin of a soul entrusted as an infinite 
treasure to our keeping. And let the sinner himself say 
what that ought to be ! Say what is due to your own 
guilt for defeating the end of your being, for turning as 
it were, to a crawling worm, what should have soared 
beyond the eagle's flight on the wings of faith and love ; 
for having transformed God's temple into an idol's shrine ; 
for having stifled in the dust of sensuality and worldli- 
ness, aspirations that should have stopped at nothing 
short of a heavenly birthright as a child of God ? What 
do you deserve for having dethroned God in your affec- 



4 o 



LIFE LESSONS. 



tions, for having trodden under foot the blood of redemp- 
tion, for having grieved the Spirit that would convince 
you of sin and lead you to the mercy-seat as a suppliant ? 
What do you deserve for restraining prayer and with- 
holding praise, for giving to the creature what is due 
only to the Creator ; for spurning the duties and the priv- 
ileges of an heir of heaven ; for disqualifying your soul 
utterly for the service and worship of the sanctuary above ! 

If some one had undermined and blown up with gun- 
powder some great structure like St. Paul's Cathedral, 
or the Tower of London, what would have been said of 
him ? But the ruin of a soul is more than the ruin of a 
tower or cathedral, for it is designed as God's spiritual 
temple. What could sting and torture you more than to 
have some worthless favorite steal away the affections of 
husband, or wife, or child ? What robbery could com- 
pare with it ? Yet what is the condemnation due to rob- 
bing God of your love, turning his glorious name by your 
sin into a word of terror, offering him scarce the mockery 
of a passing recognition, and living without any reference 
to his will ? 

Condemnation for all this is ensured by God's own jus- 
tice. The law does not go beyond what a properly en- 
lightened conscience approves. And yet its sentence — 
the sentence that overhangs all sin — that is suspended 
over the head of every transgressor — is fearful indeed. 
He is to be shut out from the glory he scorned. He is 
to be denied the mercy he refused to seek. He is to hear 
the words, " depart ye cursed." His lot is to be with the 
enemies of God forever. He is given over to everlasting 
self-accusation, to bitter remorse, to the anguish of des- 
pair. The wrath of God abideth on him. There is no 
place for him in all the realms of light and glory, in all 



LIFE FROM THE DEAD. 141 

the mansions that Christ has gone before to prepare. 
There is not a pure heart in heaven, not a sinless or ran- 
somed spirit before the throne, with which he can sympa- 
thize. His portion is with those that forget God, that 
are cast into outer darkness, that are left to reap the 
eternal harvest of their own sin, to eat of the fruit of their 
own way. All is summed up in this, the soul that sin- 
neth it shall die ! It is dead thenceforth to all that con- 
stitutes the proper life of the soul, dead to the joys of 
holiness, to the attractions of Christ, to the life of the 
redeemed. 

Who can contemplate this unmoved, and yet who can 
call it in question ? Who is not forced to confess, " all 
this by shutting God out of my soul, and taking the 
world in, do I deserve — all this is my rightful portion ?" 

But where is deliverance? The law cannot be re- 
pealed or set aside. It is as eternal as God himself. 
His existence as a Holy being makes the law of holiness 
the law of the universe. That law is imprinted on every 
man's conscience, like letters so inwoven into a flag that 
the flag must perish before the letters will fade. The 
conscience must be annihilated before it can fully and 
finally give up its trust. You must lose your conscious- 
ness as a moral agent before you can cease to feel the 
obligations which bind you as a creature of God to his 
service. And as sure as the law exists, so sure is its 
penalty, unless deliverance can be found, which, without 
putting aside the law, provides pardon for the guilty. 

Is there such deliverance ? Does it not become every 
one to ask ? Is not this the one great want of guilty man ? 
There is the tribunal before you, only a little way off. 
You are moving toward it every day. Each passing 
moment, each returning Sabbath, brings you nearer. 



142 



LIFE LESSONS. 



There is the judge, before whose presence the heavens 
and the earth shall flee away. The hour is at hand when 
your doom must be determined. Can you doubt what it 
must be, if you can offer there no plea for mercy ? Is it 
not time to ask whether you can find such a plea ; whether 
pardon may be secured, whether deliverance is possible ? 
What sort of conduct is that which says, " I know that 
God is holy and that I am a sinner against him, and that 
I must be arraigned at His bar, and that no man can say 
how soon the summons may come, but I am resolved to 
give no heed to it, to dream on to the last, to rush blindly 
upon that awful future, and take all the consequences ?" 
Is this language, though practically the language of thou- 
sands, that of wisdom or folly, that of prudence or despe- 
ration? Is it possible that you can be guilty of it? 
Should not rather everything else yield to the question 
of your salvation ? Should not all the powers of reason 
and reflection be concentrated here? Have you any 
right to rest content till you know that there is no such 
thing as salvation from condemnation ? 

Either there is, or there is not. If there is not, then 
all the messages that suggest it are false, and all the 
hopes that aspire to it are vain, and all the thousands 
who have cheered themselves in the joyous confidence 
that God had forgiven their sins, have been mistaken* 
We may sit down in the dust and wrap around us the 
mantle of despair, or we may madly make the most of the 
few transient joys that flash like fire-flies through the 
twilight of our woe, and say to ourselves, " let us eat and 
drink for tomorrow we die!" We may stupify con- 
science and brutify reason, and settle down to an irresist- 
ible fate, but surely, even there, our very despair would 
bear about it some shreds of sense and propriety, and 



LIFE FROM THE DEAD. 143 

we might have the consolation of feeling that we endure 
and await nothing which it was possible to avert. 

But if deliverance from condemnation is possible, where 
is one who claims to exercise the reason and the thought- 
fulness of a man who can afford to regard it with indif- 
ference ? Who should not inquire into it, and learn how 
he may himself be saved ? 

But the very end and scope of the Gospel is to declare 
that deliverance found, and to reveal its method. A Sa- 
viour has come to our world, and we are taught that 
whosoever believeth in him is not condemned. The con- 
victed jailor, like the thousands on the day of Pentecost, 
cries out, inquiring what he must do to be saved, and the 
reply is ever, " believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." Hear 
the Apostle himself, once a persecutor, exclaiming, " There 
is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, 
that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." And 
as the centuries pass, thousands take up the strain, and 
other thousands catch it from their dying lips, and roll 
it on till to-day from distant lands, from souls once bound 
down in heathen despair, comes up the fresh and living 
testimony, the testimony of what they know, and what 
they have felt themselves, that it is gloriously true. 
" There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ 
Jesus." 

Have you no desire for this deliverance ? The Gospel 
comes to tell you of it. Jesus is speaking of it to you 
through human lips. Do you listen indifferent ? 



XVIII. 

"THE WONDERFUL." 

" His name shall be called Wonderful." — Is. ix. 



horn 
iral- 



A WONDERFUL Being must He be, one for whom 
no history of man can find a precedent or a paral 
lei, who presumes to interpose in behalf of a lost race, 
and who in doing it, proclaims Himself " mighty to save." 
He must be one who is warranted to interpose — one who 
while he pities the lost, is fitted to appear in their be- 
half before the majesty on high — one so lowly that he can 
take us by the hand — one so exalted that He can bear us 
with Him to heaven. 

And as such is Christ revealed to us. Scripture 
showers upon Him titles which it would be impious to 
address to a creature. He is " the Wonderful, the Coun- 
sellor, the mighty God, the Father of Eternity (everlast- 
ing Father), the Prince of Peace." He is " the Alpha 
and Omega, the first and the last," " the King of kings 
and the Lord of lords." In Him dwells " all the fullness 
of the Godhead bodily." He is " head over all things to 
the Church," " the word that in the beginning was with 
God, the word that was God." He is the Son of man, 
yet the " Lord of the Sabbath." He is " God manifest 
in the flesh," and has " power on earth to forgive sins." 
He heals the diseased, gives sight to the blind, raises the 
dead, quiets the storm, feeds the multitude, lays down 

(144) 



".THE WONDERFUL? 145 

His life and takes it again. He needs no one to tell 
Him of the human heart, for " He knows what is in man." 
He is " the Messiah that was to come," who could tell 
His hearers " all things," who could say, " before Abra- 
ham was, I am," thus claiming the JehovaJi-power of the 
great I Am. He is the one whom " all men are to honor 
even as they honor the Father," the one " to whom every 
knee is to bow and every tongue confess." It is He who 
alone has ever ventured or felt warranted to say, " Ye 
believe in God believe also in me." We may not speak 
of any one's falling asleep in Moses, or Paul, or David, 
but we do speak of their " falling asleep in Jesus." He 
is " the resurrection and the life." He is that Shepherd 
who gives his flock that follow Him " eternal life," and 
He has such power that no one can pluck them out of 
His hand. 

Such are only a few of the passages in which the great- 
ness of Him who " thought it not robbery to be equal 
with God," though He took upon Him the form of a ser- 
vant, is described to us. In these I can see nothing by 
which to institute a human comparison. We are dealing 
with the infinite and the divine, and no mortal measure 
can span its compass. To make Jesus merely a greater 
Enoch, or Isaiah, or Peter, is to do violence not merely 
to the history of His sinless and heavenly life, but to 
every description of Him in the Bible which does not 
speak specifically of His human nature, His growing in 
wisdom and stature. 

We may, then, assume His divinity while we proceed 
to consider the appropriateness of His name as " Won- 
derful." And surely each attribute, each office, each 
quality is the more wonderful when you throw around it 
the vesture of the infinite, when you clothe it with the 
7 



i 4 6 LIFE LESSONS. 

divine. It is more wonderful when you multiply it by the 
measurelessness of deity, by the limitless and the eternal. 

Christ is the Wonderful then for the offices, and the 
variety of them which He assumes and discharges. 

He is the second Adam, for as the first was the father 
of the dying and introduced death into the world, so He 
is the Father of the living, for He is the resurrection 
and the life, and " whosoever believeth on Him shall 
never die." He stands, therefore, as a new Adam at the 
head of a regenerated race. 

He is " the Amen, the faithful and true witness." All 
that He has testified of God, of heaven, of hell, of sin 
and judgment, shall be verified. Heaven and earth may 
pass away, but not one jot or tittle of all He has ever 
uttered. 

He is the sinner's Advocate ; for " if any man sin, we 
have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ, the 
righteous." 

He is the Angel of the Covenant ; for through Him a 
covenant of mercy is made and confirmed between God 
and man. He is " the arm of the Lord to be revealed " 
to all nations, the exhibition of His power and grace 
combined. He is " the Author, and at the same time, He 
is the Finisher of our Faith. He originates and He per- 
fects it. He leads us to the strait gate, and He brings 
us to the gates of glory. He says, at first, " Come unto 
me ye that labor and are heavy laden," and at last, " Come 
ye blessed of my Father." 

He is the Branch, that is to grow up out of His place, 
that is to build the temple of the Lord, and that is to give 
salvation to Judah and safety to Israel, and is to be 
known as " the Lord our Righteousness." So He was 
foretold and so was it fulfilled. 



i 



" THE W02WERFUL" 1 47 

He is the Bread of Life. It is the truth that is sym- 
bolized to us by His broken body and flowing blood, that 
is our nourishment. Our souls would die if they could 
not look to a crucified Saviour and be fed. 

He is the Captain of our Salvation. He leads the 
way as we march through temptations and trials to the 
noblest conquest. He marshalls all the means that are 
necessary to secure our salvation, and then as our Cap- 
tain makes the traces of His own footsteps our path to 
triumph. 

He is the Chief Shepherd ; for while his servants watch 
for souls as those that must give account ; while they are 
diligent to lead their flock, He is diligent to lead them. 
He watches over all. 

He is the Consolation of Israel. He consoles His 
Church in all her trials and disasters. He makes light 
arise upon her darkness. He gives the oil of joy for 
mourning and the garments of praise for the spirit of 
heaviness. 

He is the Chief Corner-stone, the foundation on which 
prophets and apostles, evangelists and martyrs, and the 
whole structure of the Church from first to last reposes. 

He is the Counsellor. "In Him are hidden all the 
treasures both of wisdom and knowledge." He can give 
that counsel which can meet all the wants and emergen- 
cies of life, the counsel that is always suited to all our 
wants. 

He is that David, beloved one, of whom David was 
the type, that should save the flock of God and be their 
Shepherd. He is the Boot and Offspring of David, his 
descendant and his original — to whom David could say 
at once, my son and my king. He is the Day spring from 
on high that hath visited us, that chases away our night 



i 4 S LIFE LESSONS. 

of ignorance and despair, and brings ns the dawn of 
heaven. He is the Sun of BigJiteousness that rises on us 
with healing in Sis beams. He brings ns the noonday 
of hope and life, He makes this desert, this wilderness, 
this rale of tears, radiant with the light of heaven. And 
yet He is the Star that should come out of Jacob, and 
the Sceptre that should arise out of Israel. He is the 
bright and the morning star, the Star of Bethlehem, for 
He leads our way in the darkest night to the hope of sal- 
vation. He is the light of the w'orld, without which the 
gloom of ignorance and guilt, and foreboding, and con- 
demnation, and error, and delusion, would have covered 
the nations. He is the true light that lighteth every man 
that cometh into the world, the true fountain of enlight- 
ened reason, and piety, and devotion, without whom we 
should ever, living and dying, only stumble on the dark 
mountains ; the true light in which there is no admixture 
of falsehood or error. He is the brightness of the Father's 
glory, the revealed image of Him who dwells in light 
which no man can approach unto, the truth and holiness 
and love of God transcribed in living expressions upon 
the tablet of that human nature which Christ assumed, 
for " he that was in the bosom of the Father, he alone 
hath declared Him." He is the desire of all nations, the 
one whom all nations need and long for, for " the whole 
creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until 
now," and " the earnest expectation of the creature wait- 
eth for the manifestation of the sons of God." He is 
God's elect one, chosen for this, that " He shall not fail 
or be discouraged, till He have set judgment in the 
earth, and the isles shall wait for His law." He is a 
witness to the people, the faithful and true Witness who 
testifies to a sinful, guilty, and dying world the things of 



« THE WONDERFUL? 149 

God. He is our forerunner, who has gone before us, en- 
tering into that which is within the veil, the object of 
our hope, and requiring us to meet no foe, but what He 
has already met and vanquished. He is our leader, who 
marks with His blood-stained footsteps the path of our 
cross and self-denial. He is our example, the pattern for 
our lives, the perfect standard, the one who could say, " I 
have given you an example that ye should do, as I have 
done unto you." He is our Lord, the Lord of all, the 
Lord of glory, the Lord God of the holy prophets, the 
Lord God Almighty, and yet our servant, for He " came 
not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give 
His life a ransom for many." He is " the chief among ten 
thousand, the one altogether lovely ;" He is " the Rose of 
Sharon and the lily of the valley," for in Him greatness 
and humility, majesty and loveliness are combined. He 
is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and yet the Lamb, the 
Lamb of God ; for while His power is resistless and ter- 
rible, and He can prevail where no others can, yet " as a 
lamb was he led to the slaughter, and as a sheep before 
his shearers is dumb, so opened he not his mouth." And 
with all His meek innocence, He is our Passover, our 
Paschal Lamb, whose blood of sprinkling, like that of the 
Passover of old on the door posts of the dwelling, stays for 
us the hand of the avenging and destroying angel of jus- 
tice. He is the way, the truth and the life. By Him 
we come to God, by Him we have the promise, and 
through Him we live. He is that eternal life, the foun- 
tain of living waters, " of which if a man drink he shall 
never thirst, but live forever." He is our Shiloh, our 
peace, the Prince of Peace, who could say, " Peace I 
leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the 
world giveth give I unto you •" for it is through Him 



150 LIFE LESSONS. 

that the offending rebel is reconciled to his offended Sov- 
ereign ; through Him that he attains to " that peace that 
passeth all understanding." He is our high priest and 
Intercessor, for He " enters for us into the holiest place," 
and presents the sacrifice in the name of His whole peo- 
ple. He is Himself the voluntary sacrifice for our guilt, 
He is our ransom, He is our Deliverer, He is our Jesus, 
Saviour, He is our Bedeemer, " the propitiation for our 
sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole 
world." He is the Good Shepherd " that lays down his 
life for the sheep." He finds us captives, He breaks our 
chains, He pays our forfeit, " not by corruptible things as 
silver and gold, but by His own precious blood." He 
pledges His life to secure our ransom. Thus He becomes 
the horn of our salvation, the strength and security of it. 
He becomes our Mediator, standing between us and God, to 
open the way for our petition, and hand us down our 
pardon from the throne, screening from our eyes through 
the veil of His own flesh, that terrible majesty which no 
man can see and live. Thus, too, He becomes tJie door 
through which alone we can enter the home of heaven, 
the dwelling of our Father from which by sin we are self- 
exiled, and within which alone we find peace, and pardon, 
and blessedness. Thus, too, He becomes the Resurrection 
and the Life, the Prince of Life, and bestows upon His 
followers immortality, and makes " death to be swallowed 
up of life." He is the Bock, the Bock of Ages. Who- 
soever builds his hopes on Him is safe. 

He is, moreover, our prophet, for he speaks to us the 
word of G-od, he draws the veil of eternity and lets us 
look beyond the grave, at the judgment and the scenes 
behind that are to follow it. He is our King — " the 
King of Israel," "the King of saints," " the King of kings," 



" THE WONDERFUL:' 1 5 1 

to whom we owe perfect and entire allegiance. He is 
our Laivgiver — his life and example and instructions and 
commands are our highest law, and to present them 
secures the acknowledgement of their justice. He is our 
Judge ; his words judge us now, and in the Last Day the 
world shall be arraigned at his bar. 

Thus do we see how appropriate, from the varied titles 
and offices of Christ, is the language of the text, in which 
he is described. He is truly " the Wonderful" in whom 
all these things meet. 

But he is " the Wonderful," in the second place, because 
of the life which he led of self-denial and benevolence. 
Look at that life, incomparable and unparalleled in all 
the records of time. See how every thought, word and 
deed was made to point to the specific end of his mission, 
the glory of G-od and the salvation of the race. The 
Lord of Angels takes the form of a servant ; the Maker 
of the world had not where to lay his head. He whose 
word stills the troubled elements of nature, and hushes 
the tempest to repose, sleeps fatigued in the vessel, or sits 
down weary to rest himself at Jacob's well. If he could say 
" before Abraham was, I am," almost in the same breath 
he speaks of tearing down the temple of his body. The 
King of kings becomes the man of sorrows. The pro- 
prietor of the universe accepts the hospitality of the hum- 
ble family of Bethany. He who controls the seasons, 
and could perfect or blast the harvests, hungers and 
thirsts. He whose eye could take in the universe at a 
glance, comes down to the falling sparrow and the fading 
lily for his lessons. The poor Syrophenician woman ; the 
centurion ; blind Bartimeas ; the little children, whose 
bearers, as they presented them for a blessing, were re- 
buked by his disciples ; the poor widow of Nain — and 



i 5 2 LIFE LESSONS. 

that other who cast but two mites into the treasury while 
the rich cast in of their abundance ; and that other still 
who prevailed on the hard and unrelenting judge ; the 
beggar at the rich man's gate ; the penitent prodigal ; the 
poor humbled publican ; the weeping sisters at the tomb 
of their brother Lazarus — none of these are beneath the 
notice of that Eye that sees through the darkness of the 
grave, his own resurrection, and the bringing home of 
innumerable sons and daughters unto glory. Thus the 
whole life of Jesus is a continuous miracle, a wonder of 
self-denying benevolence. There is no turning aside, no 
digression through human weakness, but he presses on 
straight forward to the accomplishment of his life-work. 
Every step in his career was wonderful. The powers of 
earth and hell, the Scribes and Pharisees combined with 
the hosts of darkness — Pilate and Satan in league — do 
not force him to swerve from his career. Persecution 
fronts him as he goes. Treachery delivers him to the 
enemy. Death with all its lingering tortures of cruci- 
fixion stares him in the face, but still he presses on, and 
the last words of prayer for his murderers sealed the per- 
fect and beautiful consistency of a life devoted to God's 
glory and the good of man. 

But Christ is " the Wonderful" from the lessons which 
he taught. He is the great Teacher, and all the records 
of the world present us none who can boast of what his 
forerunner John declared himself unworthy to do. No 
one that has ever lived could say, " I am worthy to un- 
loose his sandals." " He spake as never man spake" — 
was the testimony of his prejudiced hearers. Human 
lips never uttered before or since a sermon to be com- 
pared with that upon the Mount. His parables are 
cyclopedias of truth, every sentence a volume. He spake 



« the wonderful: 1 



53 



as one having authority, and not as the Scribes. Throngs 
followed him by thousands, and yet he shunned observa- 
tion and rebuked praise. ~Eo shady grove or porticoed 
temple, like that of Athenian philosophers, was selected 
as the special site of instruction ; the seashore, bordered 
by the harvest field, the mountain side, the desert, the 
streets of the city, were hallowed by words too powerful 
and sacred to need halls or temples of human fabric to 
lend them a sanction. He spoke beneath the dome of 
heaven, and no encircling walls were to confine a speech 
that was to go abroad through all the earth, and its 
sound to the end of the world. And the place where he 
spoke was typical of the truth he uttered. It was open 
to all. It was free to all. It acknowledged no peculiar 
respect for birth, race or clime. The great Teacher, 
first of all, glanced over the partition walls of nations 
and religions, and taught what he alone had compre- 
hended — the religious unity of the race. 

And then look into this truth which his prescient mind 
directed in purpose to Jew and Samaritan, to the age 
that then was, and the ages that were to come. It is the 
truth of heaven. It is solid instruction. It is fact, not 
theory. The earnest glance of this Teacher pierced 
through all speculation, all sophistry, and swept them 
aside, that he might gather the wheat into the garner. 
From what lips but his did such words, such truths, such les- 
sons, ever proceed — -just what we want to know, just what 
we should know, truths that take hold on eternal things, 
that open the volume of our immortal destiny, that reveal 
God to us as King, Father, Judge, and Proprietor of all — ■ 
that open bright prospects of pardon and hope and bless- 
edness for the penitent, and gloomy abysses of despair 
unutterable for the guilty — truths that dawn upon our 
7* 



154 



LIFE LESSONS. 



night like a heavenly morning, that kindle the whole 
soul in all its faculties to a new life — truths that seem by 
an electric power to reach at once distant continents and 
far-off ages, that have nations for an audience and centu- 
ries to echo their tones that ring on like the pealing thun- 
der along the hills, till they lose themselves in eternity — 
truths that do not sleep in the soul that receives them 
like dry logic, or fruitless science, but are a seed, a leaven, 
a life within ; that renovate the whole nature ; that like 
Christ, their Author, cast out demons, and restore a man 
to himself, to his home, and his God. Where is the 
teacher whose words work such a transformation, make 
fishermen apostles, change the persecutor into the herald 
of the cross, burn into the hearts of thousands with such 
intensity that the martyr's flames are unheeded ; that in 
some obscure dwelling sink deep in the soul of its humble 
occupant long centuries after they were uttered, and 
make men of feeble, unlettered simplicity like the im- 
prisoned Madiai, calmly defiant of tyrannic power, might- 
ier in the strength of their discipleship to Jesus, than all 
the terrors of sovereign and intolerant authority ? 

Wonderful Teacher! No man ever spake like this 
man. The person, the utterance, the manner, the circum- 
stances, are all passed away. The eloquence of the occa- 
sion has fled. We may indeed conceive the charm of 
that personal presence— his finger points to the lily while 
he declares that Solomon was never arrayed like it. 
The sower was on the hillside before Him when he made 
his seed to typify the word of God. He sat by Jacob's 
well when he spoke of the living water. All this has 
passed away, but the eloquence of truth remains. Through 
the middle ages Aristotle had his commentators and in- 
terpreters in the schools and universities of Europe. His 



" THE WONDERFUL." i 55 

name now has lost its power ; but millions are listening 
to-day to hundreds and thousands that speak in the Sa- 
viour's name, and reiterate his lessons. And the time 
will come, it is coming now, when on continents and 
islands, on every shore and in every clime, Christ's truth 
shall spread, and he become the Teacher of a renovated 
world ; a ransomed race shall be his disciples. 

But He is " the Wonderful," for the ends that He 
seeks to accomplish. What these are, as they reach be- 
yond time and interweave themselves with the interests 
of God's universal government, it is not for us to declare. 
But we may speak of what is now revealed, the mystery 
of godliness, " God manifest in flesh." The Gospel is a 
wonder, its author is the Wonderful. He sought no 
selfish aim. The world has seen ambition and grasping 
avarice and self-seeking intellect elsewhere ; for a won- 
der, it saw in Him of these no trace. His object was 
one that lofty minds mav have dreamed of, but it towered 
above all they could hope to realize, like the Alps above 
molehills. He fixed His purpose on the renovation of 
the human heart and race, the re-building of its ruins, its 
redemption from sin's thraldom, its translation to an 
angel's sphere. And if the steps that He took to this 
end were arduous, they were firm and wise ; they were 
fact, not fancy ; they were cut in the granite, and a race 
might mount by them. Let a man look at that end 
which the Saviour had in view, for which He laid aside 
His glory, for which He took our nature, for which He 
taught, suffered and died, for which He chose His dis- 
ciples and sent them abroad with His great commission, 
and he will call that mind "wonderful" which originated 
the vast and glorious plan ; how much more when it 
solved the problem of devising means for its accomplish- 



156 LIFE LESSONS-. 

ment, when it called into being the mechanism and mo- 
tives, and opened the way by which it might be secured 
— when life is sacrificed and death with ignominy and 
torture are welcomed to secure its accomplishment. An- 
gels may wonder, but we will adore. 
"We can join with the poet : 

"And who is great? 
Alas ! the teeming earth has seen but one. 
The lowly Bethlehem shadowed his infant brow, the 

manger there 
Pillowed his infant head. Yet who like him 
Has come from palaces and walked the land 
"With such a crown upon his golden hair ? 
Is greatness from the glory of our sires 
Or the emblazoned page of heraldry ? 
His Father was the God of all the earth — 
His generation from eternity. 
Is it from life, or life's great deeds, that stir 
The heart to admiration, prayers, and tears ? 
His was a life devoted to the world — 
A life that battled with eternal death. 
Is it from glory ? His was that of good — 
Not marshalled by the clarion and the trump, 
But by the silent gratitude of earth. 
Is it from eloquence ? His wondrous lips 
Stirred the great elements, and mount and sea 
Trembled before his words, and wind and storm 
Sank at that magic utterance — Be still. 
He spake, and thrones before his startling voice 
And kings that filled them in their robes and crowns, 
Shook like an aspen in the coming storm. 
Is it from power ? His sceptre was o'er all, 
And the wide world bowed to his lifted hand. 
Is it from lofty love — that love for man 
That dares the tempest of a maddened earth, 
The malediction of the human heart 



" THE WONDERFUL:' 1 5 7 

For which it bows it to the sepulchre ? 

His was the great philanthropy of God, 

Alone He trod the winepress, and alone 

In red Gethsemane he bowed and bled 

Great drops of agony, and cleansed the world." 

It is easy now to discern why the Saviour is called 
"the Wonderful/ 7 or rather why He is "the Wonderful.' 7 

It was for a wonderful end — the salvation of undone 
and ruined men. When we look at this we find every- 
thing full of wonders. The soul of man is a wonderful 
thing. It has wonderful capacities, a wonderful lot on 
earth, a wonderful destiny hereafter. Its estrangement 
from God is wonderful, its degradation and sin are won- 
derful, but its restoration is a still greater wonder — it is 
a miracle of grace. It needed a wonderful mind to con- 
trive it, a wonderful power to execute it, and the history 
of the results that follow it, is a history of wonders. 
The redeemed soul exclaims with Wesley : 

" See a bush that burns with fire, 
Unconsumed. amid the flame, 
Turn aside the sight admire, 
I that living wonder am." 

It was to rescue us, to work in us a wonderful trans- 
formation, that this wonderful Jesus-Saviour appeared. 
It was to ransom the captive, to give sight to the blind, 
to make the dead in trespasses and sins live, to make 
this worm of the earth, covered with the slime of sin, a 
white-robed angel — to bring the lost wanderer back to 
his Father's house. We needed one, wonderful to save — ■ 
combining almost conflicting elements in harmony — our 
King and our Brother, our friend and our judge — human 



15 8 LIFE LESSONS. 

and yet divine — sinless, yet compassionate to the guilty- 
authorised to forgive, yet purchasing our pardon with 
his blood. We needed One to whom kings should bow, 
and who yet would hear and receive the beggar — One 
infinite in perfection, yet a perfection transcribed upon a 
human life that we might imitate — One who could suffer 
like us and be tried like us, but whose flowing blood 
could cleanse a world. Such a One — "the Wonderful" — 
has been provided. To the strange depth of our guilt 
and woe, a strange arm has reached a strange deliver- 
ance. 

Consider again what our feelings should be to this 
wonderful Saviour. They should be those of wonderful 
love. It is for us that His life was wonderful, His teach- 
ings wonderful, His death wonderful. For us he com- 
bined all those strange titles and offices in himself. For 
us he led that strange career of self-denying benevolence, 
humility and reproach. For us he spake as never man 
spake. For us He laid down his life amid the torture 
and shame of the cross. What ought our feelings to be 
toward Him — our Friend, Redeemer, Brother, Saviour ? 
What gratitude, devotion, attachment should we exhibit ! 
And what sort of a remembrance should that be of Him, 
which we cherish, when assembled at His table, and 
handling the emblems of His broken body ! 

"He that loveth me will keep my commandments," said 
Christ. " He will, he does," should be the echo of every 
Christian heart — the history of every Christian life. 
Wonderful Jesus, we will obey Thee. 

" Remember thee — thy death, thy shame 
Our sinful hearts to share — 
memory leave do other name 
But His recorded there." 



"THE wonderful:' 159 

Reflect, also, how wonderful and entire should be our 
faith and trust in this wonderful Saviour. He is worthy 
of it in all its fulness. Think of what all these titles 
mean, and what they make Him, as an object of confi- 
dence. He is " able to save to the uttermost." He can 
fulfil all our hope. Think of his truth and fidelity. Pie 
will not falsify that wonderful promise worthy of its 
wonderful author — " Whosoever cometh unto me I will 
in no wise cast out." Think of the wisdom of His teach- 
ings — the sagacity of Omniscience — that can lead the 
lost wanderer home. Where is there such a guide ? 
Think of His power — no one can pluck us out of His 
hand. Think of that love that pillowed on its bosom the 
beloved disciple, that wept with the weepers at Lazarus' 
grave, that met the abandoned outcasts with a mingled 
truth and kindness that broke their hearts. Will you 
not lean in humble and implicit trust on the Saviour's 
arm ? Will you not commit your soul into the Saviour's 
hands ? Will you not forego every vain reliance on your- 
self, and rest your hope in the Saviour's blood ? 

Consider, too, how wonderful must be the condemnation 
of those who refuse such a wonderful Saviour ! Now you 
have presented to your view a great and wonderful Re- 
deemer. He is able to save to the uttermost all that 
come to God by Him. Spurn His offer, let it alone till 
death withdraws it forever, and what becomes of you? 
The condemnation of the cities of the plain was wonder- 
ful, but they will rise up in judgment to condemn you. 

And, finally, ask what that world must be where He 
that is " the Wonderful," shall be fully revealed to our 
perfect vision. That will be glorious and wonderful 
indeed. There we shall " behold Him, whom not having 
seen we love, and in whom believing, we rejoice with joy 



i6o LIFE LESSONS. 

unspeakable and full of glory. The wonders of His 
being will be there unfolded, and to our adoring gaze 
they will appear more wondrous still. We shall appre- 
ciate the meaning of that name as we cannot now. 

A wonderful scene indeed transpires when, unseen by 
the outward eye, the King of kings comes down to feed 
the famished soul with the bread of life. Pardoned 
rebels gather to the table to meet the smile, and cherish 
the memory of their dying, risen Lord. Hopes full of 
immortality cluster around the sacred emblems of His 
broken body. But there is another scene to come, of 
which this is but a feeble type. From the east and the west, 
from the north and the south, shall come the thronging 
myriads of ransomed spirits, to sit down with Abraham, 
and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of G-od. And 
" the Wonderful " will be there, the Redeemer with His 
redeemed, and at that table of infinite love and perfect 
holiness, Eternity itself will be the feast-day of the soul. 
Every want will be met, every desire satisfied. Even 
now the Saviour Himself is giving out His invitation to 
meet Him there. Will you not accept it ? 



XIX. 

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE— WHAT IT IMPLIES. 

"Be ye therefore perfect." — Matt. v. 48. 

IT is an old saying, too little regarded by many, that 
we have but one life to live. It is common sense, it 
is wisdom, it is religion, therefore, to make the most of it. 
To accomplish this is the true philosophy of life. 

What rule, standard, model, then, shall we adopt ; for 
there is an infinite variety. You turn with disgust and 
loathing from the type of life set before you in the 
drunkard, the glutton, and the sensualist. You do not 
want a trough for a table, a sty for a dwelling, or a gutter 
for a bed. And yet, perhaps, you are lured by feasts, 
pageants, Brussels carpets and four-story palaces. You 
have a taste for flutter and fashion. You adore ease and 
comfort. 

But is there not something better than all this ? Which 
would read best on a grave-stone, a rich merchant, a 
smart lawyer, a greedy pleasure seeker, or an earnest 
and devoted Christian? Who commands the most re- 
spect, even from a godless world, the man that prays, or 
the man that jests ? And which is the greatest and no- 
blest achievement, to train the soul for heaven and enrich 
it with memories of goodness and self-denial ; or to eat, 
drink, sleep, and drift with the fashions ? 

I have no hesitation in saying with the poet, "A Chris- 

(161) 



i6z LIFE LESSONS. 

tian is the highest style of man." Plaster the body with 
tinsel ; teach it genteel manners ; store the mind with 
learning ; educate it to exquisite taste ; make a man upright 
and moral, a true friend and kind neighbor, and you yet 
fall vastly short of the Christian standard. You have 
fashion's idol, but the soul of piety is not in it. You may 
have the golden candlestick but no light ; the frame, but 
not the picture. 

It is well to be moral and upright, but principle with- 
out religion has simply the force of education and habit. 
These plant it like a cedar post in the earth, but re- 
ligion makes it live and grow, and turns it into a cedar 
of Lebanon. There can be no solidity of character, it is 
true, without morality. A man becomes like a tree with 
a hollow trunk, fair without, but ants, squirrels, and rot- 
ten wood inside, and reeling till it falls prostrate beneath 
the tornado. And yet moral principle is to Christian 
faith only as the dry channel of an aqueduct to the living 
fountain that can fill it and supply the thirst of thousands. 
Aspiring merely to morality, I level the arrow of effort 
at a height like that of the " Crow's Nest," but concen- 
trating my energies on a life like Christ's, I lay my hand 
on a crown of hope beyond the stars. 

Piety implies morality, and morality of the highest 
standard. Without this, it is but like a body bled to 
death, or a frame with the bones expunged. But a 
Christian life requires not only fair morals, but a re- 
newed heart ; not only just dealings with men, but truth 
and duty to the God of truth ; not only integrity and 
justice, but charity, humility, and holy consecration. 
Morality says, " do no man any wrong." Religion says, 
" do all men good." Morality says, " keep off the stains 
of vice." Eeligion says, " put on the robes, not of virtue 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 163 

only, but of angelic holiness." Morality bids, " pay your 
debts to your neighbor." Religion urges, " accept as a 
bankrupt sinner the free grace of God in Christ, and live 
as one bought with a price, no longer your own." 

We feel that it would be a great thing to bring the 
mass of men up to even the lower standard. They suffer 
themselves to be governed by their pleasures and their 
tastes, till a slave-driver's whip and chains could not im- 
pose a more hopeless bondage. They have no higher 
aim in life than just self-gratification. They can hate, 
envy, cheat, deceive, offend, riot, carouse, all within the 
limits of a morality that keeps their names out of the 
newspapers, and their persons from the police courts. They 
drift through life with no more moral pilotage than what 
is necessary to keep clear of the rapids of vice or the 
snags of the law. 

Some, again, belong to that class whom Cowper de- 
scribes, " whose ambition is to sink." All that consti- 
tutes the dignity of the human soul — reflection, conscien- 
tiousness, soberness of purpose, — is thrust aside to give 
place to recklessness, frivolity, amusement. The soul is 
disfigured, like an Indian tattooed for his war-dance. 
To say a funny thing, however stupidly foolish, to master 
the legerdemain of fashion, to win some frivolous game, 
to gain admission to some gay circle, this is the height 
of their aspirations. It seems as if the instincts of but- 
terflies and peacocks had been lodged by mistake in 
human bodies, or as if the owners of soul were ashamed 
of their property, and panted to supplant the image of 
God by some gross caricature. 

To bring such persons up to a decent moral standard, 
would be carrying them — not above the tops of the Alps 
or the Andes, it is true, but it would be lifting them — out 



164 LIFE LESSONS. 

of mines and caves to the light of day, out of quagmires 
to the solid ground. A strictly moral man ought to be 
sober enough to see that there is something serious in 
life, that it means more than an empty pageant or a reel- 
ing dance. He ought to be prepared to say, " this valley 
of existence bounded by the mountain ranges of an eter- 
nity past and an eternity to come, with only the gates of 
death and the bar of judgment for its outlet, is not the 
place for an heir of immortality to doze and carouse, jest 
and banter. The great heavens over us stretch them- 
selves out to an immensity which they beckon the am- 
plitudes of our expanding thoughts to fill. This soul 
itself, the wonder of creation's wonders, within whose im- 
palpable grasp whole centuries are gathered up, and 
millions of memories are stored, which by a path which 
no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not 
seen, travels back from the seen to the unseen, from na- 
ture to God, which soars aloft till poised on the brink of 
its own doom, it speculates on eternal ages when every 
earthly memorial of itself has vanished — this soul, capa- 
ble of knowing G-od, and filling an angel's sphere, is too 
great and glorious a thing to be kicked about as the foot- 
ball of fashion, too capacious to be measured by the 
jester's standard." 

But Christianity is not content with this. It demands 
more. Its aim is loftier, more comprehensive. It de- 
mands, to attain its objects, the enlistment of all the powers 
of the soul. For some men, to attain a fortune, may be 
a high aspiration ; for others, the fame of successful gen- 
eralship ; for others still, a reputable character ; but he 
who aims just to live a truly Christian life, aspires to a 
higher and more arduous as well as a holier attainment. 

Such a life implies the subordination of all selfish pas- 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. x 6 5 

sions and lusts to the divine will. This is the true mas- 
tery. A man does not own himself till God owns him, 
and that ownership is solemnly acknowledged. He is a 
slave to his baser nature, even though his chains are in- 
viting as diamond rings and bracelets of gold. While a 
passion against which reason revolts domineers over him 
— while a lust which conscience rebukes scoffs at con- 
science, he is a bond-slave of satan. He is ruled by a 
tyrant as vile and base as his own deformity. To over- 
come this tyrant, it is not enough to make a declaration 
of independence. A more than " seven years' war 77 must 
follow it, a life-long struggle to establish the ascendancy 
of virtue and the law of God. He who maintains it to 
the end, who " falls but fights anew" — till even death 
becomes his standard-bearer and waves over his pros- 
trate dust the flag of triumph — he is the true hero. " He 
that ruleth his own spirit is better than he that taketh 
a city. 77 The man who turns his own soul into a battle- 
field for God, resolved never to shrink or flee till the 
victory is won, is braver than the veteran of a hundred 
fights. How easy to love those that love you! How 
hard to turn your other cheek to the smiter ! How easy 
to glow with indignation at even imagined wrong ! How 
hard, but how noble to forgive as you would be forgiven 
yourself! A Hannibal in boyhood vows upon the altar 
eternal hostility to the Roman people. Jesus on the cross 
prays for his murderers, "Father, forgive them. 77 All 
ambitions are mean and contemptible by the side of that 
which would enthrone the purity, meekness, humility and 
charity of the Gospel within the soul. 

A Christian life implies, moreover, a humbling accep- 
tance of Christ 7 s Redemption as the only ground of hope 
for the sinner. It costs something for proud human na- 



i66 LIFE LESSONS. 

ture to stoop to this. It cost something to strip off the 
robe of pride, of trust in our own fancied goodness, and 
falling prostrate in the dust confess that in ourselves we 
have nothing to avert the descending stroke of divine 
justice, and that as helpless suppliants, as guilty wretches, 
all our appeal must be simply to sovereign mercy. Yet 
this a Christian life requires, and the man who stoops to 
this, humbles himself only to be exalted. He is not only 
pardoned, but he is delivered from his own pride. He 
has the greatness of one who forms a low estimate of 
himself. ' He has attained to this — to see his own heart 
as it appears before God — to know the weakness and 
depravity of his fallen nature. It is a knowledge beyond 
any that is taught in the schools — beyond the knowledge 
of the student, or the artist, or the historian, or the phi- 
losopher — it is the knowledge of his need, and the knowl- 
edge of his Redeemer. 

A Christian life implies, again, a consecration to a holy 
service, to the work of God. In whatever it is engaged, 
it serves him. To stand by the anvil, to follow the 
plough, to serve at the counter, to sweep the streets, be- 
comes a hallowed employment, for it is cheerfully per- 
formed at the mandate of duty ; it is done to glorify him 
by whom it is imposed. It is done because it is due — 
because he that does it confesses that he is not his own, 
but the creature of God, the redeemed of grace, a pen- 
sioner on the divine beneficence, and so with holy aims, 
he strives to put God's will in all things in place of his 
own, turning life into a prayer, and making each daily 
blessing a note in the sweet music of adoration, each 
hardship a step by which he climbs up toward God. 

A Christian life is one that necessarily seeks to do good. 
And herein it finds a field for glorious achievement. Not 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 167 

in days like these may any one speak in scorn of the blood- 
stained banner that waves over the soldier of freedom 
and native land, but the expansive aims of a true philan- 
thropy reach abroad to take the whole world in the 
embrace of their sympathies. One cannot love God with- 
out loving his brother also, and when you look on the 
humblest hero of charity, out of love to God seeking to 
teach the ignorant or uplift the degraded, what a shriv- 
elled and contemptible caricature of greatness is the 
richest miser, the greatest warrior, the most surprising 
genius, a Croesus, a Pharaoh, a Csesar, by his side. 

A Christian life is the only one worth living on earth. 
Any other soon foams away to dregs — and such dregs ! 
what they are, let a Dives, a Chesterfield, a Byron tell ! 
Back of all the show and pageant, behind the close-drawn 
curtain, there are just " the tawdry ornaments, the tallow 
candles, the wires and pulleys," which the English noble- 
man described. A bubble's life is dignity to this. An 
actor's part is sincerity to this. To be true, earnest, 
effective — to make existence here anything else than 
tragedy or mockery, rubbish or crime, we must adopt the 
Christian's standard. 



XX. 

THE FIRST AIM OF LIFE. 

" Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness." — Matt. vi. 33. 

SOME of the gravest mistakes of human life grow out 
of one fundamental error — putting first something 
that should be put second, or putting second what should 
be first. There can properly be only one thing put first, 
and that is, religion — the fear of God. It is the founda- 
tion of character, and effort, and happiness. Nothing 
else will endure and sustain the superstructure of a true 
life. 

Few, perhaps, will dispute this in words, but they do 
in deeds. They seem to me like one who in the winter 
time, when he proposes to build himself a magnificent 
palace, goes, not to the granite quarry, but, to the moun- 
tain glacier, and hews out, perhaps, enormous blocks of 
beautiful ice, and lays them deep and firm as a founda- 
tion. On this, he piles all his life-wrought materials, 
and within the structure he places all his treasures. 
Every thing he has, and his life itself, are staked on the 
durability of the ice blocks. For months there is, per- 
haps, no sign of yielding, but, at last, it may be suddenly, 
the whole structure sinks into a mass of rubbish. 

Is this fancy ? Is it not rather parable coined out of 
fact ? "What is the foundation on which thousands build ? 

(168) 



THE FIRST AIM OF LIFE. 169 

What lies at the base of all their schemes and efforts ? 
Are they not building 011 to-morrow's uncertainty, on 
some dream of success, on some fond imagination, ice- 
blocks all, that will melt under the heat of trial, and 
leave all that rests on them to sink to ruin ? 

No one can build, no one has a right to build, till he 
can build on the Rock of Ages. We are all building, 
whether we know it or not, for eternity. We may put 
up wigwams or hospitals, tents or temples, but our aims 
and deeds, whatever they are, are the soul's palace, under 
the shelter or shadow of which it will dwell forever. The 
question with what we build is a grave one, but the ques- 
tion on what we build comes first. It matters little 
whether I use hay, wood and stubble, or marble and 
granite, if in either case they rest on quicksand. A great 
genius with splendid attainments makes a more imposing 
ruin, but a ruin nevertheless. He seems to me, without 
religion, like a magnificent arch supported on a wooden 
frame, with the keystone left out. It may stand for 
years, but its fate is just as sure as that of the props that 
support it. 

Your first great duty is to shape your life to the great 
end for which it was given. Let religion draw the out- 
line and then fill it up wisely and well. See that its 
scope is right. You may journey at railroad speed, but 
if you go the wrong way, there is no progress. You 
may toil long and hard, but if you weary yourself with 
vanity, it will amount to nothing. A life made up of 
rambling and zigzag will do very well if it ends where it 
began. One who spends his life in gazing at rockets 
will see little of stars and sun. Thousands live extem- 
pore, watching for the next meteor of politics, gain or 
fashion. Their future, so far as they note it, is just a 
8 



i 7 o LIFE LESSONS. 

mirage of fancy, all this side the grave. They never ask, 
why am I here, what is my proper business, what is the 
great end I should ever keep in view ? They ramble on 
with little thought of where their last yesterday will 
leave them. Life has no more shape to it than the gravi- 
tation of indolence, taste or circumstance gives it. 

Or, if there is a plan, how often is it a false one ! It 
would make a meteor of what should be a star. It would 
debase an heir of heaven to a millionaire, a tidewaiter, 
or a fop. It would draw off talent and probation and 
even the river, " the streams whereof make glad the city 
of God," into currents to turn the machinery that saws 
logs and weaves cotton. It would put the Bible under 
foot that it may stand on it and so reach higher to grasp 
the prize which the Bible forbids to seek. It would sub- 
stitute gold for grace, and gain for godliness. It would 
fill God's temple with money-changers. It would sacri- 
fice the soul's everlasting birthright to pamper the lust 
of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. 

This is a " Comedy of Errors " beyond any that the 
genius of the great dramatist ever invented ; comedy that 
runs into deepest tragedy, that begins with a jest and 
ends with a sigh, that lulls to heedlessness and wakes to 
remorse. 

All this would not be of so much account if you could 
satisfy yourself that there was no God to judge you, no 
future existence for the soul, no high and glorious destiny 
to which God invites it, no capability by God's grace of 
turning this life into an introduction to the everlasting 
blessedness of heaven. But if any one to gratify you 
should attempt to prove this, with what horror would 
you regard him ! You would feel that his argument was 
atheism and his logic despair. With a shudder you 



THE FIEST AIM OF LIFE. 



171 



would say, " to corruption thou art my father, and to the 
worm thou art my mother and my sister." 

Ah ! it is not in man calmly and complacently to look 
upon such a doom. The soul shrinks from it as the flesh 
does from torture. We feel that we were made for 
something better. The instincts of our being crave im- 
mortality. There are moments when the bounds of time 
seem to us like the shell of the bird ere it spreads its 
wings. We can rise heavenward. The stars seem but 
the milestones of everlasting progress. The soul aspires 
to freedom from its fleshly chain. This life is the child- 
hood of being, this world the perch whence we are to 
soar away. 

Shall man then, when the light of revelation confirms 
all this and more, be content with a meaner ambition 
than the heathen artist who said, " I paint for eternity ?" 
Shall you, a child of God, be content with the heritage 
of a slave ? Will you, with lips that can lisp " Our 
Father," pawn your birthright for a prodigal's portion ? 
Will you, who may be even now a king and priest unto 
God, kindle the fires of Baal and do sacrifice to mam- 
mon ? With joys even now offered, sweeter than Eden's 
fragrance, and with treasures in the love of God richer 
than gems and gold from uncounted mines, will you 
choose rather the sands of the world's deserts, and its 
apples of Sodom that are ashes to the taste ? 

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. 
Sixty centuries empannelled on the jury give in that ver- 
dict. It pronounces him a fool who presumes to live 
without God and has no hope. He has not truly began 
to live who has not yet met the claims of his Maker. He 
may count his years by the score ; his success by honors ; 
his wealth by thousands ; but these are all only autumn 



i 7 2 LIFE LESSONS. 

leaves, without one living bud among them all, if the 
heart is still given up to the world. 

Take all the materials which time and earth can af- 
ford ; exhaust mine and prairie ; summon enterprise and 
energy ; call in genius, and taste, and talent, and learn- 
ing ; blend with all every social grace, every moral vir- 
tue and every refinement of art, and out of all these build 
up the completest human life that your resources will al- 
low, yet without the grace of God it is but a tower of 
Babel. There are the walls of a temple, but there is no 
God within. There is an altar, but the living coals are 
not on it. There is a priesthood, but it is rather of 
Mammon's hierarchy than of Aaron's lineage. There is 
the majestic organ, but unhallowed fingers cannot sweep 
its keys. A crowd throngs its courts, but they wait on 
the tables of the money-changers. Its spire may point to 
heaven, but the sordid dust of worldliness tracks all its 
aisles, and the cobwebs of vanity are hung about its pil- 
lars. Many a splendid career is only the mausoleum of 
a dead soul. 

Now, put religion at the foundation, and even with 
commonplace materials build on that. A man begins to 
live as one that is to live forevermore. Fearing God 
alone, he rises above all human fear • knowing he is to 
give account, he tries every deed, and he puts into the 
walls of life nothing that will not stand the fires of the 
last day. Counting himself not his own, he is grandly 
generous, living to do good, and not to please himself. 
Capable of divine joy, he scorns the silly pleasures that 
would crowd their Dagon idols into God's temple. He 
prays, he toils, he lives for God. The plan of his life is 
fixed, clear, definite, and like a tree — every fibre of its 
roots drawing in nourishment, and every leaf of its 



THE FIRST AIM OF LIFE. 



73 



branches drinking in the dew — it shapes everything to 
its own pattern. Light and darkness ; sunshine, storm ; 
plenty, want ; all feel the transmuting power of its subtle 
chemistry, and yield to the control of a consecrated pur- 
pose. Such a life will be good and great. You may 
plant it in the lowliest valley, you may hide it where few 
eyes gaze, but it will bloom with an Eden beauty ; it will 
overtop worldly surroundings, as a cedar of Lebanon 
would shrub-oaks, and the very children that gather to 
sport beneath its spreading branches will bless it for its 
green leaves and its cool shade. It is a tree fit to trans- 
plant to the Paradise of God. 

Such a life will be an evergreen. The frosts that strip 
the forest that winter may howl its dirge through the 
leafless branches, cannot harm it. It will bear fruit in 
old age. Its end will be peace, and the blessing of those 
that were ready to perish will crown its memory. 

Begin life aright then. If you would not have weeds 
for your harvest or bricks for your toil, give God your 
heart, and think of the life that never ends. Put your- 
self in thought far away beyond these shifting, cheating 
scenes ; soar aloft above this fire-doomed earth, and its 
shows and pomps ; see the great globe with all its cities 
and palaces shrinking to an atom ; leave time behind 
you ; take your place among the angel choir that sweep 
their golden harps before the throne ; and ask yourself 
then what this life should be, fitting for an angel's child- 
hood, for the service which the redeemed shall be glad 
to render forevermore. 

If that sphere is ever to be yours, you should begin to 
live for it now. You should be robing yourself every 
day for that great Assembly that are draped in the spotless 
white of heaven's purity. You should put off sin and put 



i 7 4 LIFE LESSONS. 

on righteousness. You should learn the lesson of prayer 
and praise. You should seek to know Him whom to 
know aright is life eternal, and with whom you hope to 
dwell forever. You should allow no toys of sense to al- 
lure your eye, or divert your purpose. You should say, 
"with one life only to live on earth, I will not squander it 
on trifles ; I will not turn it into an episode of folly ; I 
will not crowd it with bitter memories of sin ; I will not 
build any immortal hope on shadows ; but I will so live 
that my farewell of earth shall be my welcome to heaven. " 
Make your present life then the title page of your im- 
mortality. Let there be no word or letter in it which 
shall belie the contents of a volume that shall record an 
angel's career. The soul's identity demands, if you as- 
pire to heavenly blessedness, that you shall not burden 
memory with the everlasting incongruities of a life of sin 
on earth. If there is anything which in the light of the 
throne you would not like to recall, shun it now. If there 
is anything which can fit you for the high sphere of an- 
gelic service, now is the time for preparation. If exis- 
tence has any sphore in which wisdom can be called into 
service, in which your highest interests demand a thoughi>- 
ful anticipation of future destiny, that sphere is the one 
in which you are moving now. In view of a final judg- 
ment, by the light of a blazing world, under the eye of 
the great Judge, face to face with eternity, the soul must 
yet sit in judgment on itself. Why not act to-day with 
reference to what you know will be its final sentence ? 



XXI. 

THE CONFLICT OF LIFE. 

"Fight the good fight of faith."— 1 Tim. vi. 12. 

WHO that has ever witnessed the volunteer soldier 
going forth to take his place in the ranks in de- 
fense of his country, has not felt his sympathies strongly 
enlisted in his behalf? There was so much to touch the 
heart — his youth, his inexperience, the fearful scenes be- 
fore him, the fearful perils he must encounter, the possi- 
ble fate that may in a moment quench all his young, 
bright hopes, the exposure and the vices and diseases of 
campaign life, the sad, perhaps final farewell of parents, 
of brothers, or sisters, or weeping friends, the grandeur 
of the cause in which he is engaged, the solemn pledge 
which he may be called to lay, embalmed in his heart's 
blood, on the altar of his country — all conspire to make 
him an object of no common interest. 

And yet, more sublime, more impressive, more affecting 
than this, is the sight of an immortal spirit, entering amid 
the perils of a sinful world upon the great conflict of life, 
from which he is to come forth crushed or triumphant, 
the coward of guilt, or the hero of God. And this con- 
flict is before us all. We must share in it, not as mere 
spectators, but as actors. Our own eternal interests are 
staked upon its issue. 

175 



i 7 6 LIFE LESSON'S. 



There are some aspects of life as a conflict subordinate 
to the main one which the Bible presents, which ought 
not perhaps to be overlooked. It is very rare that any 
man gets through the world without a struggle of some 
kind. Even indolence, reposing on the lap of luxury, has 
to conquer the nausea of existence, and plant ever new 
batteries of amusement and diversion to kill time, and 
murder the hours as they march upon him. He that will 
not work has to suffer in his encounter with poverty, 
hunger and rags. Sometimes he must have a sharp and 
life-long fight with conscience and his better convictions 
that steadily harass him. His coveted ease is at best 
an armed neutrality. While he rests upon his arms he 
is beset by guerrillas of vice and anxious alarms. 

But most men sooner or later learn to submit to the 
struggle of life, and enter upon it more or less manfully. 
Sometimes that struggle is narrowed down to procuring 
the means to keep soul and body together. There are 
thousands whose life is just a hand to hand fight for 
crusts, rags, and shelter from the storm. They grow 
thin and frail and grey before their time, in toil and 
weary strivings to earn the pittance that keeps them 
from absolute starvation. It is a very dismal business, 
and yet the grace of God sometimes makes it glorious, 
turns it into the school of faith, makes it the furnace of 
trial, that purges away the dross, and refines the gold of 
character. 

Others struggle for wealth or competence. Day by 
day, with unremitting toil, they contend with the diffi- 
culties that obstruct business success. They fight with 
their own weariness or indolence, endeavor to master the 
methods of gain, tunnel the track of their enterprise 
through the heart of rocky obstacles, besiege the forces 



:>+/> 



THE CONFLICT OF LIFE. 



77 



of fraud, competition and design that stand in their 
way. 

Others struggle for political eminence. They fight 
their way by argument, intrigue, bribery, compromise — ■ 
in the street, in the caucus, and on the platform. And 
when they come out at last scarred in honor, bleeding in 
reputation, with conscience well-nigh shot away, with 
confidence in them riddled and in tatters, we feel that 
all their honor and perquisites are but the shroud to 
wrap about their infamy, the tribute of respect to mere 
success. 

So others struggle for respectability. They envy that 
position to which some around them have attained. As 
a general aspires to the palm of victory, so they aspire 
to possess a rich garment, or win social recognition, or 
attain genteel manners, and with all the ardor of a pur- 
suing army, they prosecute the campaign of life, and 
hope soon, by forced marches or persevering assaults, to 
carry their position against a gold chain or a piece of 
broadcloath, a flower or a feather. And sometimes 
there is a generalship displayed in the movements that 
would do honor to the ablest military strategist, a per- 
severance and an engineering tact rare even in military 
science. 

No doubt in these and other ways, a great deal of in- 
tellectual drill and discipline is secured. Even children, 
with faculties sharpened by contact with want and crime 
and schemes of fraud, become premature veterans. They 
are trained to perfection as unscrupulous intellectual or 
selfish machines, and they fight out the battle of life, 
with the tact of guerrillas or the desperation of pirates. 

But all this is quite aside from the real conflict of life 
assigned us in the providence of God. Our business 



i 7 8 LIFE LE880N8. 

here is to contend with sin and temptation and the pow- 
ers of darkness, and to carry our souls unharmed through 
the assaults of this present world, following close in the 
footsteps of Jesus, the great Captain of our Salvation. 
We need bread, and we must work for it. We want 
established character and confidence, and we must strug- 
gle to maintain integrity, and vindicate our good name 
by a consistent life. We want the comforts of social 
existence, the means of intellectual improvement and 
enjoyment, and for those we must strive and toil ; but 
these things imply only the skirmishes incidental to life's 
great battle. Pervaded by a holy purpose — endured or 
performed by a faith that looks through them to their 
spiritual significance as discipline, they become an essen- 
tial and integral part of the conflict, and yet he that 
looks only to the attainment of worldly good, and expends 
no thought on what lies beyond, has not as yet obtained 
the first proper conception of the real meaning of the 
conflict itself. 

In the first place, we have to contend with the de- 
pravity of our fallen nature. Within our souls are our 
most powerful and dangerous foes. He that is victorious 
and well armed within is truly a conqueror, and may des- 
pise all outward assault. But if within his own bosom are 
lodged traitor passions that rule there, if his unsubdued 
lusts carry him away at will, and sway the desires and 
aims of the soul, then all his wrestlings against external 
temptations are vain. He is delivered over helpless to 
their grasp. He is like a shorn Sampson in the hands 
of the Philistines. 

First of all, therefore, he must conquer his own heart 
for truth and God. The kingdom of heaven must be set 
up within. All secession and treason must be driven 



THE CONFLICT OF LIFE. 



179 



out, that the law of God may rule there. The code of 
selfishness must be expunged from the soul's statute-book. 
The anarchy of a lawless will — saying we will not have 
God to rule over us — must be subdued. 

This is a great work, and the soul unaided will never 
accomplish it. Native resolution is unequal to the task. 
The instruction and guidance of worldly wisdom alone 
never yet effected it. The soul matched simply against 
itself is lost. It must have help from above. The grace 
of God must come to its rescue. " This kind goeth not 
forth save by prayer and fasting." The revolution with- 
in that throws off the usurped authority of Satan and 
the powers of darkness, can be carried forward only by 
a divine energy. He that would fight successfully the 
great conflict of life, must first of all recognize his de- 
pendence on a higher power. He must place himself 
under the shadow of the Almighty. He must take the 
weapons of prayer, and call mightily on Him who by the 
gift of the Spirit can change the nature of the soul and 
transform it into His own image. 

And then he must still pray on. He must guard 
against everything that would repress his progress in 
holiness, or obscure his hopes, or separate his soul from 
God. He must keep the great and glorious example of 
his Master in his eye. He must be vigilant lest he be 
surprised by temptation. He must be aware of the foes 
that lie in ambush within and around him. He must 
study his own imperfections and infirmities, as a careful 
general will study and repair the weak points in the for- 
tress which he is charged to defend. He must allow no 
selfish aim, no worldly suggestions, to creep in and throw 
open the gates of the soul to the powers of darkness. 
He must strive to keep the soil of his heart as sacred 






180 LIFE LE880N8. 

from all unhallowed intrusion, as that where Moses met 
with God, and put off his shoes from his feet. 

It is no easy task to perfect holiness in the fear of the 
Lord — no easy task to bring the soul up from its low aims 
to a heavenly standard — no easy task to crush its spiritual 
foes beneath its feet. Sometimes, indeed, the battle is 
more desperate than at others. Strong men have wrestled 
and struggled mightily against mighty foes. See Peter, 
with all his impetuous zeal, overcome and led to deny his 
Master. See Demas betraying his trust, " having loved 
this present world." Note the sin of Noah, the distrust 
of Abraham, the impatience of Moses, the fall of David, 
the stumblings of Solomon. Read what history tells us 
of Cranmer's weakness when threatened with the flames, 
and Bacon's intellectual greatness tarnished with the 
corruption of his bribes. 

I have seen and known those who seemed in a position 
not unlike that of Christ, when the Great Tempter for a 
sinful compliance promised Him all the kingdoms of the 
world, and the glory of them, and I have seen them make 
what I feared was the fatal choice. There, on one hand 
was the humble obedience and blessedness of a child of 
God, and on the other were the prizes of worldly distinc- 
tions, and these proved more powerful and carried the day. 

But more common foes are those which assume a less 
imposing shape, or which sometimes wear a prophet's 
mantle. The ancient seer thought he did well to be 
angry. Men would resist a plain, unmasked open-faced 
devil ; but if only the schemes of their selfish gratifica- 
tions are wrapped about with spiritual professions, they 
are willingly and easily misled. They will sometimes 
fight Satan's battle under God's banner, and think they 
are doing God service. 



TUB CONFLICT OF LIFE. 181 

But generally the evils we have to combat in the con- 
flict of life are plain enough to him that will understand. 
The good fight is the fight with sin — sin within and sin 
without — whatever would overcome us or keep our souls 
from God. This implies indeed opposition to all evils 
that come properly within the sphere of our effort — the 
chronic depravity of the world, the phases of iniquity 
which corrupt morals, and make gain godliness, and 
blight the influences of the Gospel, and sometimes we 
must come to a hand-to-hand fight with these. It may 
be that, in fidelity to our own convictions, we must like 
Paul fight with beasts at Ephesus, or attack sin in its 
strongholds, like John before Herod, or endure reproach 
from those who blindly or wilfully misrepresent us. And 
yet we are to fight our way through with the patience 
of Job and the charity of Jesus, so that abuse shall leave 
no scar on our even temper, and disappointment shall 
generate no bitterness of spirit, and our zeal shall not 
prove a sword on which we fall ourselves. 

For it is far more difficult to guard against the thrusts 
of the Tempter, than to strike blows at solid, organized 
wickedness outside of us. A man may invoke heaven's 
vengeance on some outrageous wrong, and yet have the 
very essence of that wrong enshrined in his own soul, as 
I have heard of a parent swearing to his child that he 
would punish him if he swore. The real battle of life is 
not in the street, the market, the caucus, the hall of legis- 
lature — it is in a man's own soul. There, with no eye on 
it but God's, the fight begins and goes on. As there is 
success or defeat there, the issue of life itself is decided 
for good or evil. The conqueror within will be the 
conqueror without. Who that has lingered over the 
wrestlings of Luther, that has watched his anxious strug- 



i8z LIFE LESSONS. 

gling spirit in the monastic cell, and as he climbed St. 
Peter's stairs at Rome, or flung his inkstand at the dark 
shadow on the walls of the Wartburg ; who that has 
gazed upon Saul in the agony of his blindness and self- 
accusations, waiting for Ananias ; or read Bunyan's 
" Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners," that makes 
us feel how real to him were the Slough of Despair, 
the Hill Difficulty, and the Yalley of the Shadow of 
Death — does not feel that these men, by the grace of 
God were made victorious in the great inward struggle 
of life, before ever they were prepared to strike those 
blows whose echo rings yet in the ears of the world ? 

Practically, then, the good fight is fought within the 
soul. Paul fought with the beasts within before he 
fought with the beasts at Ephesus. He struggled against 
his own proud heart, before he grappled or was fitted to 
grapple with the great dragon of Pagan idolatries. In 
the full impetus of his course he speaks of pressing for- 
ward to the mark. He kept his body under, and brought 
it into subjection. He found a law in his members 
warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him 
into captivity to the law of sin. Here was the fight 
which in the eye of heaven was the Thermopylae of his 
life's campaign. Without having been a victor here, he 
had never made Felix tremble on his judgment-seat, or 
disputed daily in the school of one Tyrannus, or preached 
the Gospel to Caesar's household. But victorious within, 
he was armed and strengthened for a life-long struggle 
with principalities and powers, and spiritual wickedness 
in high places. Victories at Philippi, at Ephesus, at 
Rome, were but the natural sequents of victories won 
over the lusts and vanities and passions of his own 
heart. 



THE CONFLICT OF LIFE. 183 

This good figlit is the one to which we are all sum- 
moned. You may not feel that there is any to be fought. 
Satan may be besieging you unmolested and at his leisure. 
He may have not yet completed his battery or fortifica- 
tions. He may not yet have succeeded in cutting off the 
hope of retreat. He may not have yet solemnly and 
formally summoned you to surrender. He may not yet 
have brought you hopelessly under the range of your 
own habits ; he may not yet have planted his mortars so 
as to burst their deadly shells in the magazine of con- 
science. You may be led by the quiet unconcern of your 
own spirit to feel that for you there is no struggle. 

But this would be a great mistake. The struggle 
must — it will come. The sooner the better. Every 
hour's delay to resist diminishes the hope of successful 
resistance. Even now, is not the foe dangerously near ? 
Have you not already been yielding too long ? What 
effort have you put forth to save your soul? What 
struggle against an evil nature within you has been yet 
noted by the great cloud of witnesses ? Have you yet 
passed from darkness to light ? Are you ranged under 
the banner of God and truth ? Are you trampling on 
one after another of those unhallowed desires and feel- 
ings and tastes and habits which Christ cannot approve ? 

If not, it is time that the good fight was begun. It is time 
that you measured the strength of the foes that withstand 
your progress toward heaven. A little longer — and you 
might in vain have worlds given you to purchase the 
peace of the conscious assurance, "I have fought the 
good fight 1" 



XXII. 

LIFE AN EDUCATION. 

" Reaching forth unto those things which are before." — Phil. hi. 13. 

AN old heathen philosopher was once asked what it 
was necessary that boys should learn. " Those 
things/' he replied, " which they will need to know when 
they become men." 

There was sound philosophy in his answer. It em- 
bodies the true principle of education. The sports and 
plays of childhood must not crowd out the lessons that 
fit one for manly duties — the lessons that train the mind, 
the heart and all the energies and affections of the soul. 
If they do it they make one first a plaything, and then a 
wreck. They fling upon society another instalment of 
human rubbish. They multiply indolence, crime, and- 
misery. The entire neglect of intellectual, moral and 
religious training for one generation among the most 
cultivated people, would throw them back hopelessly and 
inevitably into barbarism and heathenism. 

But the usefulness, happiness, and success of the individ- 
ual for his whole after life, are usually determined by his 
early training. A mistake here casts a shadow over all 
his years, that can scarcely be deepened by the shadows 
of the grave. Leave his mind unfurnished by wholesome 
truth, and it ever remains, instead of a parlor or a work- 

(184) 



LIFE AN ED UGA TION. 1 8 5 

shop, a cobwebbed garret. The vacant apartments of 
thought are occupied by vermin and rubbish. Leave 
the passions unsubdued, and they turn the soul into a 
tiger's cage, and a man grows up a self-willed, capricious, 
violeut, tyrannic being, uncomfortable himself and un- 
comfortable to everybody else, always in trouble, and 
practically an Ishmael, domineering or impetuous, a tyrant 
or a criminal. Let the individual be left to his appetites, 
let him be indulged in having whatever he craves, and he 
will always be governed by his impulses, and his thirst 
for pleasure, till nothing will satisfy him ; content will 
be impossible. He will be uneasy, restless, wretched — 
in heart like " the wandering Jew," in life " like a wave 
of the sea, driven of the wind and tossed." 

It is a fearful thing — the tragedy of the soul here — to 
drift upon the years and duties of manhood, with the wis- 
dom of a child, but the will and passions of a man. A 
catastrophe of some kind is sure. It may be spread out 
over scores of years, or it may be concentrated in some 
sudden gust of passion or desperation. Sometimes life 
becomes a long drawn 'agony, a protracted spasm of un- 
satisfied appetite, due simply to the fact that the mind 
was left to neglect. It grew up uncared for, and became 
like a garden of weeds, or an uncultured thicket. 

We know this. We see it. The picture of the reality 
before our eyes, painted on canvas woven out of human 
hopes and fears, and colored in blood. We know also 
the elements of a happy life — a life whose even flow 
knows neither stagnation nor cataract, firm in duty, beau- 
tiful in integrity and virtue, rich in inward peace and 
smiling memories and pure affections, contented with its 
lot, cheerful in hope, genial in spirit, and abiding con- 
sciously under the smile of God. Such a life is no mush- 



186 LIFE LESSONS. 

room. It is no morning glory. It is no accident. It is 
as much the result of training and God's grace, as th 
harvest is of the seed and sunshine. 

Even thus — with life bounded by three score years an 
ten — we feel how important is the education — how im 
portant all the influences that shape character, how much 
depends on the way one lays out in early days the plans 
for days to come. But prolong existence — make it a 
thousand years ; make it a hundred thousand — and who 
does not see that if years to come are shaped by the pres- 
ent, the arithmetic of morals is unequal to solve the prob- 
lem of the importance of these years that are passing 
now. 

And who can doubt that the future is shaped by the 
present? All observation assures it. All experience 
confirms it. The maxims of life assume it. The truth is 
engraved on the history of character, of nations as of 
men. " As the twig is bent the tree 's inclined." The 
scarred sappling never forgets its wound. Educate a 
child in vice, accustom him to falsehood, and hateful as 
they are, the chances are that he will cling to them, and 
they will cling to him. He does not, cannot shake off 
the serpent coil. 

When the foundations are laid, it is not easy to go back 
of them or tear them up ; the bounds of the structure are 
defined. All that is added must be built on it. It is so 
with character. Manhood completes the plan of youth — 
rarely does more than what that foreshadows. But if 
time is the soul's childhood, eternity is its manhood. 
The foundations of the structure are laid here, and its 
bounds are defined. What we shall be for ever we be- 
gin to be now, and the shape which the soul takes in 
time it carries with it beyond the grave. 



! 



LIFE AN ED UGA TION. 1 87 

Now it is the inward disposition of the soul that de- 
cides its happiness or misery. It is so here. The body 
makes little difference. A soul possessed of heaven's 
own peace, is little shaken by the world's jars, or by the 
trembling of its clay tenement. A soul morally diseased, 
or ruled by selfish passions, or at variance with God 
and holiness, would be wretched in a body of iron nerves, 
or under features cast in the finest mould. The elements 
of our real life — the light or darkness in which we walk 
— the joys or griefs we feel — are not visible in the out- 
ward form. So that we inevitably conclude that — in the 
body or out of the body, it matters not — the happiness 
of our being depends mainly on the soul. Death will 
take away nothing from, and add nothing to, what is 
stored up in the soul. It will only rob the spirit that 
leaned on material things, and diverted itself by sensual 
indulgence or worldly association or outward forms, of 
the staff on which it leaned, and fling it back on itself, 
on its own spiritual bankruptcy, on its own meagre and 
dull society and weariness of existence, from which it 
once fled to the giddiest follies of show and pageantry. 
This refuge will be denied it. It can no longer go forth 
like the evil spirit of which we read, even into dry places, 
seeking rest which is never found. The dry places will 
be wanting. The soul can no more divert itself by eye, 
ear, or taste, but only sit down to the banquet of its own 
thoughts, and pluck the fruits from trees of its own 
planting. 

Here, a wicked man will contrive, by the body's help, 
to get on with a kind of comfort. He will go out of 
himself. Intolerant of his own company, and wretched 
in it, he rushes to books, shows, balls, theatres, pugilistic 
encounters. He turns his back on himself and goes 



188 LIFE LESSONS. 

abroad. But crumble off the instruments by which the 
soul converses with the external world, let it sink into 
itself, and then do you hasten and insure the result of 
making a man's happiness or misery correspond to his 
moral being. The image in the mirror will not be more 
true. Then the passions which, like envy, gnawed the 
bosoms that cherished them, will have no check. 

Now put this disembodied spirit on the track of an 
endless existence, without any positive infliction, but only 
just left to itself. Character, poured liquid into the 
mould of seventy years, has become cast iron. Habit is 
second nature, and confirms nature. How long must one 
wait before the soul, self-alienated from God, and thus 
excluded from every holy and pure joy flowing from 
divine communion, with tastes and longings and appe- 
tites that crave their old indulgence but are denied it 
forevermore, with habits of diverting and engrossing 
itself in what the crumbling body denies it access to 
henceforth — how long before it will sink under the into! 
erable burden and count conscious existence itself a curse 
and a perpetual torture ? 

Will it help the matter to take note how long it takes 
a man to become disgusted with himself and the world 
and his own existence here — or rather how soon he runs 
through the world as he runs through his fortune — how 
soon with sun and moon and stars and flowers and feasts 
and dance and jests to help adjourn the crisis, it comes 
upon him ? Was Lord Chesterfield, the prince of wits 
and gentlemen, a fool ? Did he rush on a blind fate ? 
And yet hear him, as if he had caught the echo of Solo- 
mon's " vanity of vanities/' declaring that as for the rest 
of his life's journey, he meant to sleep it out in his car- 
riage ! 



LIFE AN ED UCA TION. 1 89 

A man wants more than his wit, or fortune, or nobility, 
or philosophy, to reach hopefully, and peacefully, and 
cheerfully, the close of his three score years and ten. 
Old age that follows a reckless youth and a stormy man- 
hood is apt to cling to a life it loathes, and to grow in- 
tolerably disgusted with an existence which it dreads to 
relinquish. Those former delights charm no more. The 
full soul loathes the honeycomb. The creature of fash- 
ionable folly is satiated, cloyed. Nothing but religion 
can turn the shadows of its declining years into the dawn- 
ing twilight of immortal day. 

If, then, it is folly, manifest and inexcusable, to plunge 
in youth into those follies and fashions, and indulge those 
tastes and form those habits, which will turn later life 
into an arid desert, and fill the soul with restless pas- 
sions and discontent, how much greater and grosser the 
folly that wastes this springtime of existence, makes no 
provision for immortality, and flings the soul unfurnished 
upon the stern realities and sad experience of the life to 
come. 

You cannot doubt — no man can — that the need of the 
disembodied spirit is that which gives to the soul here 
the peace of God and the blessedness of a renewed and 
holy nature. You cannot doubt — no man can — that the 
spiritual education which the soul receives on earth will 
cast its long shadows of curse or blessing over the im- 
mortality to come. You cannot doubt — no man can — ■ 
that before every man is the awful possibility of an illim- 
itable existence hereafter, when every added year shall 
press with a crushing weight of satiety and loathing on a 
soul left to itself, with no resources of divine or holy 
communion, but ever tossed on the restless waves of crav- 
ing yet unsatisfied desires, and bitter or aching memories. 



190 



LIFE LESSONS. 



Will you then, an heir of immortality, pay less regard 
to the eternal years to come than to just this fleeting 
hour ? A child, wilful and ungoverned, may rush into 
those paths of heedless pleasure which lead through the 
gates of dissipation to an infamous and wretched old age, 
if not to an early doom, and to a grave of shame — but 
will you with your eyes open, scorn the claims of that 
religion, by the power of which alone, your soul can be 
received, and your spirit be fitted for the joys and service 
of the spirit world ? Will you, building for eternity, lay 
the foundation of your immortal destiny on the sands 
and pebbles of time — on the indulgence of wanton or 
capricious tastes, on show and pageant and fashionable 
folly and heartless, godless mirth, which, ere you die, 
may sink beneath you, and leave you at the mercy of 
your own vain thoughts and accusing memories ? 

What will you need most as a member of the great 
heavenly family, as a citizen of the New Jerusalem, as 
one of that great throng who cast their crowns at the 
feet of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and rejoice in 
the light of his presence and the joy of his smile forever- 
more ! What will you need most in such a sinless and 
blessed world as you must imagine that of the saved to 
be, with angels and the Redeemed for your associates, 
and with no access thenceforth to the sensual delights 
that amused and diverted on earth ? 

Will you need that holy education for which the Scrip- 
tures are the text-book — lessons from the life and lips of 
Him who said " learn of me ?" — the penitent believing 
spirit that humbly relies on the grace of Christ, knows 
no will but God's, and by discipline has been brought to 
a loving and cheerful obedience ? 



XXIII. 

CULTURE OP A HOLY LIFE. 

" The boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars."— Ps. lxxx. 10. 

IF you had presented you from some kind and generous 
friend, some very precious shrub or plant which he 
had brought you from a distant land, and you had planted 
it in a favored spot in your garden, how carefully 
would you watch over it, and study how you might pro- 
tect it from exposure, and encourage its growth ! It 
might not yet have produced fruit or flower ; it might, 
indeed, be little more than a sightless homely root, but 
assured that it was capable of a bloom as exquisite as 
nature can boast, or a fruit as luscious as the tropics can 
produce — how deeply would you be affected by anything 
which tended to injure it ! 

Need I say that if the seed of God's truth has been 
planted in your heart, and the Spirit of God has caused 
it to germinate, you have there in that invisible garden 
of which God has constituted you the keeper, a plant 
that outrivals in worth anything that is brought from 
distant continents or the islands of the sea.. Let it grow 
as it ought, and its bloom is richer than that of the rose ; 
its fragrance is sweeter than that of orange bowers ; and 
its fruits have no parallel even in the fabled gardens of 
the Hesperides. It comes from far. It is an exotic 

091) 



192 LIFE LESSONS. 







from heaven. It is watered by the blood of redemption 
It is fanned by the breath of the Spirit, and its garnered 
harvests are the treasures of immortal blessedness be- 
yond the grave. 

Such a plant as this demands your care. No worm 
should gnaw its root ; no mildew should blight its vigor ; 
no tempest should rend its limbs. No culture of other 
plants should interfere with your culture of this. Better 
let them be overgrown or dwarfed, or left to perish, than 
allow this to suffer from neglect. 

It is possible that you have no such plant to care for 
or cherish. You may possibly never have spent a 
thought on procuring it. There are many things planted 
in the garden of your heart, but this is not there. There 
are domestic affections, love of father, mother, brother, 
sister, child, or friend — but not love of God. There is 
delight in pleasure, not delight in holiness ; desire for 
gain, not desire for heaven. What does this mean? 
Are you giving up God's garden to waste ? Are you 
surrendering to grass, if not weeds, soil that might pro- 
duce the very fruits of heaven itself? Have you allowed 
a barren fig-tree to grow where a tree of life ought 
to be ? 

I go in the spring time into the little yard where you 
have what you call your garden. It is perhaps a very 
small patch of ground — possibly only a rod or two 
square. I look and see how carefully you have filled it 
up. You have not been content with the seed that came 
first at hand. You have deliberated and asked yourself 
what is it best to put in the narrow plat. You wanted 
to make the most of it, if it was small, and so you 
selected the choicest seeds and roots. There is no wild 
flower there. There is no unsightly or fruitless plant there. 



CULTURE OF A HOLT LIFE. i 93 

Do you deal so carefully with that little plot of 
ground, and so carelessly with the garden of your own 
soul — broad enough for the harvests of coming years, 
rich enough to support the tree of life? There is no 
other soil like it. Western prairies are deserts to it. 
Mind, as mind, furnishes no parallel. The heart is in- 
comparably richer than all. It might under fitting cul- 
ture produce the fruits of everlasting life. 

And have you left it to its own rank and, perhaps, 
noxious growths ? Have you suffered your own natural 
desires to spring up there almost unchecked ? God for- 
bid that such a record should last one day longer ! 

But I will venture to suppose that there is something 
there beside the seeds of selfishness and irreligion, and 
the growths of worldliness. You have a conscience. 
Have you cultivated that? A man who will not be 
suspected of fanaticism at least, has said of himself : — 
" A little boy in petticoats, in my fourth year, my father 
sent me from the field, home. A spotted tortoise, in 
shallow water, at the foot of the rodora, caught my 
attention, and I lifted my stick to strike it, when a voice 
within me said, 'It is wrong.' I stood with uplifted 
stick, in wonder at the new emotion, till rodora and the 
tortoise vanished from my sight. 

" I hastened home and asked my mother what it was 
that told me it was wrong. 

" Wiping a tear from her eye, and taking me in her 
arms, she said, ' Some men call it conscience, but I prefer 
to call it the voice of God in the soul of man. If you 
listen to it and obey it, then it will speak clearer, and 
always guide you right. But if you turn a deaf ear, or 
disobey, then it will fade out little by little, and leave 
you in the dark without a guide.' " 
9 



i 9 4 LIFE LESSONS. 

Is not conscience something to be cultivated ? Guard 
it inviolate — there is not a more tender and yet more 
precious plant on which you can bestow your care. 

But has not the seed of God's holy truth been planted 
in your soul ? Have you not heard words from heaven 
unspeakably more valuable than any seed sent from 
China, or India, or our western coasts — words that in 
other hearts, under the dews of grace and the breath of 
the Spirit, have ripened into penitence and love, and 
self-denial, and Christ-like charities — words that have 
become the mottoes of Brainerds and Howards and Mar- 
tyns — the watchwords of missionaries and martyrs — the 
light of youth and the staff of age — the sword of the 
warrior or the banner of the victor ? You have heard 
these words. Have you allowed them to take root in 
your heart, the very soil God designed for them, or are 
they to-day devoured by the crows or left parching in 
the sun ? 

Perhaps you have some faint feeble desire after a bet- 
ter portion. So have I seen the little tender plant under 
heaps of rubbish, struggling with natural instinct to find 
its way underneath fragments or through crevices up to 
the light. Under years of worldliness this feeble desire 
is almost buried, but a mother's hand planted it, and a 
mother's tears watered it, perhaps, and it is not quite 
dead yet. Will you let it die? Will you thwart it 
still ? Oh, beware how you crush it to the dust ! Let 
it perish — and perhaps it is near it now, and what spring 
time shall ever revive it ? 

But is there indeed a germ of genuine penitence in 
your soul ? Is love to God rooted there, however feebly ? 
Does the purpose — no dried leaf, no dead fossil — live 
there to serve your Maker — to glorify the great Being in 



CULTURE OF A HOLT LIFE. i 95 

whose hand your breath is ? Then it is more than whole 
burnt-offerings and sacrifices. He that will not break 
the bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax will account 
more of that than of the cattle upon a thousand hills. 
The broken and the contrite heart he will not despise. 
The germ of faith, of the new life of the soul, is unspeak- 
ably precious. From the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop 
on the wall, there is no other like it. Its value is beyond 
the power of words to express. It is the one thing that 
turns life's desert sands to more than golden drift. It 
sanctifies the dross and drudgery of life. Its roots 
should run their fibres underneath all your plans and 
draw into themselves the love and energy and strength 
of the soul, till the crude moisture of the sod is changed 
into the golden fruitage of a second Eden. 

Your great business here is to nurture that germ, to 
cultivate that shoot, to train it up into a tree of life that 
shall bear fruit for God and heaven. You can neglect 
it. Many do. You can leave it unprotected to the rob- 
bers of the air and street, the crows of the wilderness or 
the vultures of gain. You can take no pains to bring 
the waters of the river of God into channels flowing by 
its roots ; you can let the fiery arrows of the tempter 
whistle through it and strip its boughs. You can indeed 
— -just by neglect — make it the worldling's bye-word, a 
half-decayed stump that does little more than mark the 
place where a Christian ought to grow ! But is this 
worthy of a soul endowed of God as yours is ? worthy 
of such capacities as yours — worthy the seed sown that 
was brought from heaven — worthy the blood by which it 
was watered — worthy the harvest you would hope to 
reap when death comes to tell you that the seed time of 
life has forever fled ? 



; 



l 9 6 LIFE LESSONS. 

Nothing is plainer than that if a man wants to have 
the plant of piety grow in his soul, he must cultivate it. 
It is not enough to attend on ordinances. These are 
needful. They are like light and warmth to the plant. 
But light and warmth are not enough. Plant your corn, 
and give it unshadowed to the sun. Will it grow? 
Yes, but if let alone it will grow spindling, and the 
weeds will overtop it, and its rich green will change to 
sickly hue, and there will be no corn on the stalk. I 
will, in fact, be stubble and nothing more. So, if you 
would grow in grace, you must keep the soil of the plant 
stirred and loose, you must cut down the weeds — root 
out tares — and see that the parched earth is fed with 
moisture. 

You must meditate on duty, and sin, and God. The 
hour of meditation is like that evening hour when all 
nature with open lips drinks in the dews. The patriarch 
went forth to meditate at evening tide. His soul could 
harmonize with the scene. That solemn hush of the 
world, when nature seems to shut her eyelids, and sink 
to silent repose, has its meaning. The constant glare of 
the sunshine would kill a plant. You want rest-from the 
glare of business and fashion. You want your hour of 
sacred repose. Step aside from the busy throng, and 
think what you are, a sinner — what you need, grace — 
whose you are, Christ's — what you hope to be, a re- 
deemed spirit before the throne. Let the world's echoes 
die away, till you can hear the still small voice. With- 
draw from all human presence till you feel that you are 
alone with the Omnipotent. Go up into the mount — 
higher — higher — till you tread the world beneath your 
feet, or look down on it as a tinselled cheat, or see it lost 
in the overpowering glories of eternity, like a spot on 



CULTURE OF A HOLY LIFE. 



197 



the disk of the sun. Then may the dews of grace fall, 
as the dews of heaven do in the still hour, refreshing, 
cheering, joyous. 

Store your mind with God's own truth. This supplies 
the vital sap of the soul. Let every fibre of your spirit 
drink it in, and you shall grow in grace and knowledge 
at once. " There is but one book," said the dying novel- 
ist, when he was asked what he would hear read. There 
is but one book that is full of God, or which can fill us 
with all His fullness. Read it. Ponder it. Not Plato 
or Bacon, or Addison, but He that spake as never man 
spake — speaks there. Go up with Him to the mount, and 
hear His sermon. Sit with Him at the table and listen 
to His words. Walk with Him in the fields and read 
His paragraphs syllabled in flowers, and tares and fig- 
trees. Take David's harp and sweep its strings to the 
music, "The Lord is my shepherd." Sit at Isaiah's feet 
and bow and adore, while he unveils the glorious great- 
ness of Him " who weigheth the mountains in scales and 
the hills in a balance." Or go visit Paul in the chill 
prison where he writes for his cloak, but puts forth the 
jubilant song of the triumphant warrior who has " fought 
the good fight," and even with his manacled hand is 
already grasping his crown. That is reading the Bible. 
That is the work of the soul taking wing on the pinions 
of holy thought, soaring up to God on the lofty aspira- 
tions of the saints, on " winged words" plumed by God's 
own Spirit inbreathed into his own prophets and apostles. 

You may find good books if you seek them — books 
that will cheer you, instruct you, refresh your spirit — 
books that, as William Wirt once said of Baxter's 
" Saint's Rest," are " like a piece of old sandal wood, 
fragrant as ever after it has exhaled its fragrance for 



198 LIFE LESSONS. 



. 



centuries.' 7 But among all these there is no Bible. 
They are precious indeed ; they are like the bayous 
formed by the overflowing of the " Father of Waters/ 7 for 
they are fed from the " River of Life." They are buckets- 
full drawn from the well of truth, but Christ alone is the 
living fountain. He is the vine ; they are the branches. 
Watts may sing his sweetest songs ; Toplady, like the 
dying swan, may breathe into your soul the music of 
" Rock of Ages cleft for me" ; Doddridge may trace for 
you the " Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul," till 
the feeble germ has expanded to a cedar in the garden 
of God, and Baxter, with his " Dying Thoughts," may 
hold you spell-bound at the very gates of glory or on the 
edge of the mouth of the pit — but not one of them all 
can speak like the prophet with his fire-touched lips — 
can transport you to behold Patmos visions — can awe 
you with the blended authority and grace of Him, whose 
dying agony evoked the sympathy of the rending earth 
and the darkened sky. 

Read His words. Read God's utterance through the 
pens of all the inspired writers. It is like the breath 
of spring to winter's blasted herbage. The soul freshens 
and blooms under it, and he that bears the best and 
noblest fruit of a devoted Christian life is he that is 
most devoutly conversant with the Divine word. 



XXIV. 

THE LIFE POUNDED ON CHRIST. 

"If any man build on this foundation." — 1 Cor. iii. 12. 

THE Christian life is presented by Paul under the 
figure of a house, the foundation of which is laid 
in Jesus Christ — the experience of the truth of Christ as 
our atoning sacrifice and Redeemer. No man can lay 
any other foundation than this, that is, there is no possi- 
ble basis of a Christian life which does not rest in the 
experienced power of the Gospel. Men may go and con- 
struct a life of what are called " good works " without that 
experience which implies of necessity a change of heart, 
but if so, they are only like the foolish man, of whom our 
Saviour spoke, who built his house upon the sand. They 
have, in reality, no foundation. They build on a mere show 
of one — sand or shadow, — and all their work, however 
costly, however laborious, however pleasing to the eye, is 
no better than " the baseless fabric of a vision." It is a 
mere picture to look at — made to perish. The man that 
has it may regard it with much self-complacency. He 
may sometimes, like the Pharisee in the parable, admire 
himself in admiring it. But it is mere show ; it will be 
swept away and perish. 

It is essential to a building that is to stand that it have 
a solid foundation. This is true of the structure of a 
Christian life. You cannot build it up on the mud and 

(199) 



200 LIFE LESSONS. 

rubbish of an unrenewed nature. Men that have begun 
to build without being- converted, without having dug 
deeper than the eye of man reaches, find, at last, that 
they might have as well ended where they began. They 
have put them up a mere tent instead of a house, and 
when the storm comes they are buried in the wreck. 
That foundation on which the Christian architect builds 
is Jesus Christ, that is, his experience of Christ as his 
Saviour. You may call it what you will, conversion, the 
new birth, repentance, experience of religion, or some 
other name, the substance of it is the same ; it is Christ 
in the heart ; Christ the wisdom of God and the power 
of God to salvation ; Christ our atoning sacrifice ; Christ 
our Redeemer from the curse of the law. There may be 
moral men, amiable men, benevolent and charitable men, 
who do not have this ; but you cannot call them Chris- 
tian men. Their life, admirable in some respects, is not 
a Christian life. The structure they build may be a 
splendid Pantheon or museum, but it is not a Christian 
temple. They have not the foundation for it, the plan 
for it. They may show skill and taste. They may use 
labor and diligence, but the Christian corner-stone is 
wanting, and when the test hour comes they will find 
it so. 

The necessary basis for us on which to build, is one 
which implies an entire change of ruling purpose. A 
man comes out of the darkness into the light. He seen 
himself no longer an irresponsible, independent, isolated 
being, but a creature and subject of God. He sees what 
he was made for, and how he has neglected to live for it. 
He sees himself a sinner, with the prospect of retribution 
before him — a transgressor of God's law and God his 
judge, — and, thus enlightened, he finds Christ a Saviour 






BUILDING ON CHRIST. 201 

opening the way of pardon, pointing hiin to heaven, set- 
ting before him a hope full of immortality. He sees him- 
self arraigned before the judgment-seat, without a refuge 
save in the blood of the covenant, and now time shrinks 
to a span, and eternity spreads out into an ocean, and the 
infinite littleness of earth is contrasted with the infinite 
greatness of heaven, and he begins with new plans to live 
as under God's eye, and as he directs. He has found the 
way of peace and pardon. He has entered into a new 
world of invisible realities. Christ is everything to him, 
life, pardon, hope, fruition, blessedness. Christ is his 
Friend, Example, Teacher, Redeemer, Mediator, Inter- 
cessor. Christ's word is his law, and Christ's smile his 
reward. He can say with Paul, " for me to live is 
Christ." All that he is or has or can do, belongs to 
Christ. Christ is his strength, his refuge, his portion. 
What a structure may be built on this foundation ! 
What noble piles have some men, by the grace of God, 
reared on it — monuments of piety which have come down 
to our day, and before which we stand and gaze with ad- 
miring wonder. Select out of all the cities of the old 
world the grandest structures of architectural genius that 
have challenged admiration ; bring together at a single 
view all that Thebes, Palmyra, Babylon, Nineveh, Jerusa- 
lem, Athens or Rome could exhibit in their palmiest days, 
all that has combined beauty, and vastness, and artistic 
proportion, and when all has been exhibited, I will show 
you something better, something greater, something more 
admirable. By the side of the dome of St. Peter's, I will 
bring the life of the ingenious dreamer, the humble tinker 
of Bedford, and in the life of Wilberforce, I will show 
you a loftier art than graced the achievement of the 
builder of St. Paul's. The man that has built himself up 
9* 



202 LIFE LESSONS. 

a life like that of Baxter, has done more than the skill of 
Sir Christopher Wren ever achieved. When Howard 
wrote beneath his name that characteristic sentence, 
11 Christ is my hope," he pointed out the only foundation 
on which a life like his can be built. Let me pass along 
through the streets of the great cities of the world, where 
splendid piles of architecture in granite or in marble 
throw their huge shadows across my path, and yet I shall 
feel that they are a poor sight, a meagre achievement, 
by the side of what meets my eye when in my walks in 
humble life, I see the forms of love, and self-denial, and 
godly devotion, built up by unnoted hands on the rock 
of our Christian faith. Walk along the path of the cen- 
turies from eighteen hundred years ago down to this pres- 
ent, and pass in review " the noble army of martyrs," and 
Christian confessors, building up out of these hard years 
of probation, with all their temptations, hardships and 
discouragements, lives of heroic faith, that have stood, and 
still stand like pillars of witness, to tell the world what 
can be built on the Gospel corner-stone. Buried in an ob- 
scurity that no antiquarian disturbs, and which will never 
be dispelled, unless God gives tongues to the stone walls 
of dungeons, or the rocks of the wilderness, or the scat- 
tered dust-atoms of heath, moor and glen — there are, 
waiting a resurrection, biographies of unknown men, who 
in toil, and hardship, and self-denial, under the conscious- 
ness of God's all-beholding eye have accomplished their 
lifework, and left in the bosom of their unfrequented val- 
leys the memories of holy faith and love and communion 
with heaven more precious and beautiful, if we should 
dig them out even in fragments by our careful research, 
than anything which buried cities like Nineveh have 
yielded to the museums of art. If an angel could become 






BUILDING ON CERIbT. 203 

a pedestrian on our planet, we may well believe that 
while he might pass with a mere glance the houses and 
palaces of kings, he would find in lives that will have no 
headstone to record their memory, that, over which he 
would pore like Old Mortality cutting out afresh the 
moss-grown letters on the tombstones of the martyrs. 

But much as we must admire what some of Christ's 
disciples have done — much as we may wonder at the 
structures of penitence and self-denial and charity and 
beneficence and holy devotion, that have been built by 
good men on the rock Christ Jesus, who will say that all 
has been achieved that may be ? Who will venture to 
assert that there is not strength in those foundations suf- 
ficient to bear up manifold more than ever yet has been 
placed upon them ? Surely not these men, who, after all 
they have done, lament their shortcomings — not the Pauls 
and the Baxters and the Howes and the Paysons and the 
Brainerds, who could all feel their own deficiencies, con- 
fessing — " not as though I had already attained" — even 
while exclaiming, "I can do all things through Christ 
that strengthened me !" 

And what may not, and what ought not, that man to 
accomplish in living, who builds on the received princi- 
ples of the Gospel of Christ — the man who takes to his 
heart the great truth that Jesus saves him from sin and 
death through the sacrifice of himself, and who regard- 
ing him as his example is impelled by love and gratitude 
and conviction to strive to be like him ? Tell me if there 
be anything in the whole world that ought to make a 
man so holy, that should exert upon him so benign an influ- 
ence, as what he finds in the self-denial and condescen- 
sion and purity and heavenliness of the Son of God ? Is 
there not that glory and radiance in the face of this doc- 



204 LIFE LE880N8. 

trine of an atoning Redeemer, that, shining upon us, 
ought to change us into the image of the heavenly from 
glory to glory ? And where on earth will you go to find 
stronger or more eifective motives than those which grow 
out of the conviction that we are not our own, but are 
bought with a price — motives that ally eternity with 
time and come bearing down upon us with the force of 
the infinite ? What ought the life of that man to be who 
feels himself indebted for being, for saving grace and 
immortal hope, to the love of God in Christ — whose daily 
if not hourly song of thanksgiving is — ■" He hath taken 
me out of the horrible pit and the miry clay, and hath 
set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings, and 
he hath put a new song into my mouth, even praise unto 
our God." 

What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy 
conversation and godliness, — ye who confess yourselves 
to be indebted for everything to the Holy One who re- 
deemed you — ye who can well be supposed to forget the 
lighter vanities of earth in view of that far more exceed- 
ing and eternal weight of glory — ye whose treasures are 
spiritual, and whose hope immortal, and whose home a 
house not made with hands ; how contemptible in your 
eyes should appear all the mightiest motives of ambition 
or of worldly good, before the word and ordinance of 
Him who " hath the key of life, who openeth and no man 
shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth !" 

When I consider the several doctrines, the reception 
and adoption of which are implied in a Christian pro- 
fession — our fall by nature — our state of condemnation 
under the law, the infinite greatness and holiness of our 
Sovereign, whom we have disobeyed — the wonderful con- 
descension of Christ — his atonement for the sins of men, 






BUILDING ON CHRIST. 



205 



the complete justification that attends faith in his finished 
work — the hope and peace that flow from the conscious- 
ness of submission in everything to the divine will — the 
immortal portion of the believer in the kingdom of God, 
after he has been judged and been declared " accepted in 
the Beloved" — when I consider these several doctrines 
in their grandeur and the mutual relation they bear to 
one another, all having an evident reference and adapta- 
tion to the death of Christ, I seem to see them all like 
so many huge foundation stones resting upon and fitted 
to one another, and all connected with the chief corner- 
stone, and I feel that he who would build upon them in 
justice to their true proportions, will rear such a struc- 
ture of religious doing and enduring, of heavenly-minded 
beneficence, and of saintly purity and love, as can find 
nothing but the merest and feeblest symbol of it in all 
the shapes of beauty and of grandeur into which the 
marble has been piled, and I feel that no architect, of 
however exalted a name, can be compared for a single 
moment with him who in the humbleness of the obscurest 
lot — true to the plan of his great Teacher — cuts the years 
of his probation into living stones that will but shine in 
a brighter and more lasting beauty, when the fires of the 
last conflagration shall have helped Time to do his work 
of destruction on the crumbling palaces of the kings and 
the nobles of the earth. 

Can you conceive of a nobler ideal than is set before 
you in the life to which the doctrines of Christ as our 
Redeemer point the way — and can you wish for yourself 
anything better, or more blessed, than to realize that 
ideal, so that your life shall stand out at last in the full 
and finished proportions of a temple — ever resounding 
with praise — ever sanctified by the indwelling of the 



206 LIFE LESSONS. 



Shekinah of the divine presence — bearing the imprint of 
consecrated purpose upon every fragment even to the 
topstone laid with shoutings of " grace, grace unto it?" 

When I hear men talk in the pride of human reason, 
and under the guise of a human philosophy concerning a 
perfect manhood, I cannot but revert to the better philos- 
ophy of the Christian system, for I find there the only 
true and proper basis on which that perfect manhood can 
rest ; I find there the only power that can use the Ar- 
chimedes lever of morals, and lift man out of the mud 
and slough of his native corruption and set him on the 
solid foundation, the rock Christ Jesus. I know that the 
motives of the Gospel have done and can do this, and I 
know by the testimony of holy men, as well as from their 
direct tendency and efficiency, that their power is not 
exhausted. What they have done, that they can do, and 
more. Time holds in her repository of the future more 
perfect types of a sanctified humanity, perhaps, than any 
she has yet shown us. If nature has not exhausted her- 
self of all her Sir Christopher Wrens and Michael An- 
gelos, grace may, we will hope, yet present us with other 
Howes and Bunyans, other Dwights and Paysons — men 
that shall rise to a saintlier greatness while they rest on 
the Rock of Ages. And should you not be among them ? 

But let us consider what sort of use is made of this 
incomparable foundation. All sorts of structures are 
built upon it — " gold, silver, precious stones, hay, wood, 
stubble." You have only to glance at the Christian 
world to see what this means. Some use this foundation 
well, others ill. Among the multitudes truly converted, 
as we have reason to believe, there are great diversities 
of character. Some go on toward perfection, while others 
stop short and never seem to advance in the Christian life. 




BUILDING ON GHRI8T. 207 

There are some who build with worthless material, 
and in a most clumsy and unworkmanlike manner. If 
they use anything, it is the hay, wood and stubble. They 
throw upon this foundation all sorts of rubbish and be- 
come the architects of confusion and ruin, rather than of 
order. Their lives, if you examine them with a Christian 
scrutiny, are piles of loose material, without fashioning 
or fitting of part to part. You could not select a word 
more aptly expressive, as applied to them, than stubble. 
They contribute nothing to what should be the structure 
of a Christian life, but refuse material, straw and chaff 
that can be shaped to no useful end. What would you 
think of a carpenter who should go out into the harvest 
field, instead of the forest and the quarry, and glean up 
the trampled straw to fashion it into a building ? You 
would pronounce him mad. You would call it trifling 
and mockery ; and so it would be. A spark of fire fall- 
ing on his gathered rubbish would set it on fire, and turn 
it to ashes. But if that was spared — imagine him with 
saw and chisel attempting to put the material together. 
His foundation is furnished him and he will make a stub- 
ble palace. The very idea is absurd ; but not more ab- 
surd than the course of some, who profess to live for God 
— to shape their life into a structure of holy devotion, 
yet only scrape together a mass of straw and chaff. It 
is obvious that their profession — as to the breadth of 
it — is a mistake. They are largely after the world. 
Their ambition is to accumulate so much property, repre- 
sented by such and such pieces of paper — in other words, 
stubble. All their energies are tasked and devoted to 
the accumulation of wealth. Let us conceive of them at 
the close of their career. Their probation is ended. 
Their life's work is finished. The structure of their toil 



LIFE LESSONS. 

is complete, and what is it? A heap of incongruous, 
chaffy, worthless material ! On a Christian foundation 
they have built up a worldly life. Vain and unworthy 
aims have intermingled with it. To be rich or envied or 
honored of men — to enjoy the pleasures or indulge in the 
fashions of the world, has absorbed their efforts. Day 
after day they have seemed to forget that they were con- 
secrated architects. You might imagine that their high- 
est aim was to gather straw like the Israelites in Egypt 
to make brick. Men look at them as patterns not of 
Christian living but of industry and business tact. They 
admire their skill, not their devotion. They quote them 
as authority in trade, not in religion. It is possible that 
even this may be too favorable a judgment. They may 
be more intent on ease and luxury and pleasure than on 
industry and exertion. Now what will be their view of 
themselves when they come to die ? In that honest hour 
how will they estimate what they have sought to accom- 
plish ? It is sad and mortifying to consider. Will they 
not wish that the last years of their life had been denied 
them — that they had been taken out of the world be- 
fore they had dishonored their profession by heaping on 
it all sorts of vanity and confusion ? Will they not be 
constrained to feel, if they do not say, like a celebrated 
French marshal, " My life has been a failure ?" 

And now shall I give you the image of such a life ? — 
a life that we will suppose has at some time or other felt 
the powers of the life to come ? Paul has done it for 
you. It is a foundation of rock covered with stubble — 
and so covered that perhaps it would require some labor 
to clear away the rubbish and let men see what lies be- 
neath. Am I severe in this? No more so than the 
Apostle — not half so severe as the unfortunate builders 



BUILDING ON CHRIST. 209 

are on themselves. You would shudder to hear the sen- 
tence which they have sometimes pronounced on their 
own life. With all their years of skill and toil they have 
only labored to cover up with chaff and all sorts of un- 
worthy things the only ^precious thing they had — the 
experience of the grace of God. 

But let us turn to others. Few will say, " I have done 
all I could. I have made of my life all that could have 
been made of it." The best men shrink from this. Those 
who do not, create strong suspicion that they do not 
know themselves. Still there are those whose lives are 
precious — Time's richest jewels. They are gold, silver, 
precious stones. In attempting to express the value of a 
truly faithful Christian life, words fail me. I know of 
no expressions worthy of those that are gems in the Re- 
deemer's crown, and having turned many to righteousness 
shall shine as the stars forever and ever. Take some 
humble private individual like Harlan Page, noiselessly 
pursuing his career of unostentatious Christian action — 
full of faith and prayer — ever studious of saving souls 
— dropping a word here or there like a harvest seed — 
studying opportunities — sparing no effort — tasking every 
energy for his Master — and when his last work on earth 
is done, when his last word is spoken, and his last prayer 
uttered, in the ripeness and symmetry of a perfected 
Christian character going home to the reward of his 
Master's smile — and tell me if gold or silver or any of the 
precious things of earth are fit symbols of its unspeakable 
worth, of its untold blessings ? You might divide it up 
into infinitesimal fractions, and every one of these frac- 
tions would be of greater positive value than the lives 
of some men of world-wide fame — and some who profess 
to be Christian disciples. 



2 1 o LIFE LE880NS. 

There are again some lives that are, if we may say so, 
valuable and worthless at the same time, and, like credi- 
tor and debtor pages, balance off one another. Some 
men from lack of discretion, or from uncontrolled im- 
pulse, undo at one time what they do at another. A man 
may engage with great zeal in the work of God in a time 
of revival, only to borrow an authority and influence for 
his irreligious, or at least worldly example, afterward. 
You can quote him on both sides of the same question. 
It is like light and darkness commingled. His life is a 
dim twilight in fact — for night and day meet together in 
him. One rash act, or a series of such, counteracts all 
his better effort. He is at last but a cypher — not always 
on the right side at that. There are some men of this 
stamp that we should rather pity than harshly rebuke. 
The fault seems rooted in their constitution. Their 
character is, like a ship under sail, impelled by a breath, 
or like an immense mass of rock, such as you may have 
read of, poised by nature so delicately that a child's hand 
could set it in motion. Still it is a man's duty, in spite 
of the flaws and crooks and contortions of nature, to 
yield to the power of grace — to control himself and be 
consistent at least, if not discreet. And still how often 
on the mind of others will some act of a Christian pro- 
fessor counteract all the good influence he has ever ex- 
erted before ! His extravagance of dress, perhaps, is an 
outward denial of his former words — a visible symbol 
of a false heart. His gay, vain, trifling manner seems 
to say — " My profession of being serious is a jest too." 
His conversation and prayers — his conduct and profes- 
sion look two different ways. His taste for worldly 
pleasures seems to say — " There are no joys at God's 
right hand " — his thirst for gain — " There are no trea- 






BUILDING ON CHEIbT. 211 

sures in heaven." His readiness to judge others harshly — 
" I do not expect to be judged by the measure I mete," 
his readiness to take advantages unwarranted by fair 
dealing — " The rule is absurd of doing to others as you 
would have them do to you." Now if in such a life you 
discover only a spasmodic piety — a sort of galvanic dis- 
tortion of muscles instead of healthy action — you must 
not be surprised. There is life enough to be galvanized — 
not enough to act. 

Hence it is that you may find the Church of Christ 
itself so various and diversified — gold, silver, precious 
stones — hay, wood, stubble. Walk through the streets 
of a great city, and you will see the diversified character 
of its dwellings representing the diversified phases of 
Christian life. Some are palaces, some are hovels. Some 
are built of stone — some are mere tinder. Some excite 
your admiration, others your aversion, if not disgust. 
Perhaps you will say it must be so. But why? Here is 
the foundation on the Eternal rock. Why not build 
upon it that which shall endure ? 

But the matter is not merely speculative. We are 
builders, all of us. Some have this foundation — some 
not. If you are building without it, all you build is 
sure to perish, and your own soul will be buried in the 
ruins. Is it not time to know on what you build — - 
whether you have yet experienced on your heart the 
power of the Gospel — whether your soul has been con- 
secrated to God and His service ? How sad the thought 
that you have only lived to destroy your immortal hope — 
that you have enjoyed a probation only to be proved a 
reprobate — built up a structure of irreligion which shall 
fall upon your head and crush you to despair ! There 
is no other foundation to build on than the rock Christ 



212 LIFE LESSONS. 

Jesus. Everything else is sand or mire. Scht ^e out 
your life of pleasure — it is the baseless fabric of a vision. 
If you know not what it is to feel the power of the Gospel 
in changing your own heart — you are living to no good 
purpose — you are wasting — infinitely worse than wasting 
— all your toil. 

But suppose you have the foundation. You have been 
converted to God. You know what it is to have passed 
from death unto life. What are you doing now? What 
are you building on this foundation — what have you built 
already? Have you followed the plans of the Great 
Architect? Are you building for eternity? Are you 
gathering and rearing an edifice of durable material? 
What will remain of your work when life is over ? The 
man that does his work as a Christian, will rear that 
which can never perish. Worldly men scratch their 
names on the sand of the sea-shore, and the next wave 
washes out what they have done. But if you perfect your 
own soul in righteousness — if you live a life of devotion 
and prayer — if you leave the impress of a hallowed in- 
fluence on the minds of others, your work will endure. 
The fires of the last day will not consume it. It will 
attest in the judgment your fidelity to your Master. 

But if it be otherwise — even if your own soul is saved, 
which is barely possible, your work will perish. You 
will see it all melt away and vanish. It will consume 
like the stubble. It will be a pile of ashes. The winds 
will scatter and drift it away. And where will you be — 
if saved, yet saved so as by fire — like a man escaping 
from the flames and leaving all behind ? 

Remember what a firm and noble foundation is yours. 
It is the Rock of Ages. It will sustain a devoted, faith- 
ful life. Let your career, then, be worthy of it. 



XXV. 

THE LIVING TEMPLE. 

" Ye are the temple of God." — 1 Cor. iii. 16. 

ONE of the finest passages in the writings of that 
grand old Puritan, John Howe, is the one in which 
he describes the desolating, ruining effect of sin upon the 
soul of man, which he compares to the unsightly remains 
of a decayed and neglected temple. It was destined to 
a noble use — the worship and service of the Most High. 
But it has become desecrated and polluted. Even in its 
ruins, however, something of its old grandeur clings to 
its crumbling walls and its fallen pillars. " The stately 
ruins are visible to every eye, that bear in their front 
(yet extant) this doleful inscription — Herb God once 
dwelt. Enough appears of the admirable frame and 
structure of the soul of man to show the divine presence 
did sometime reside in it ; more than enough of vicious 
depravity, to proclaim he is now retired and gone.' 7 

What thoughtful mind does not feel the truth of this ? 
The soul of man is the most wonderful of all God's 
works. It was intended for his special service, and was 
made the object of his special favor. It has become pol- 
luted and desolate, and the object of Christ and of the 
Gospel is to purify it again for himself. 

The soul of man is the most wonderful and admirable 
of God's works. 

(213) 



LIFE LE880N8. 



Which is greatest, St. Paul's Cathedral or its archi 
tect — St. Peter's, or the genius of Michael Angelo that 
spanned its lofty dome ? There are human works that 
hold us spell-bound by their beauty or their grandeur 
while we gaze upon them. What must Solomon's temple 
have been, which a Roman emperor strove to save from 
the flaming torch ? What is the Taj of India with its 
massive walls, its stainless marble, and its grand propor- 
tions ? Yet these are all inferior to the architect's ideal. 
In his own mind are thoughts greater than can be hewn 
or piled in stone. 

The painter, the sculptor, each produces works which 
entrance us almost. They are called " masterpieces." 
But what is the confession of their authors ? The rude 
stone is not plastic enough to yield back the pattern of 
their nobler thought. The mind, the mind is greater 
than all. 

But what are human works to God's works ? What 
are the pillars of Karnac and Luxor to the pillars of the 
mountains ? What is the painting of the ocean in storms 
to the grand original ? What is a sun on the canvass to 
a sun in the heavens? What is the cannon's roar to 
God's thunders and earthquakes ? Without lifting our 
eyes to the broad heavens or surveying the lofty and 
overpowering proportions of nature's great temple, this 
earth we tread, with its rivers and lakes, its cliffs and 
mountains, pours contempt on temples, and palaces, and 
pyramids, and Chinese walls. 

But the soul of man rises sublime above all these. It 
weighs the globe as it were in scales. It soars to im- 
mensity. It travels back to an eternity past, or antici- 
pates an eternity to come. It glows with love, or burns 
with lofty passion. Its spiritual history is the romance 



THE LIVING TEMPLE. 215 

of creation, before which the story of land or sea, of 
monsters or earthquakes grows tame ; and even in 
thought it stands on the ashes of a cindered globe, ex- 
ultant in a destiny that has just begun when worlds 
have ceased to be. It is grander than the mountains, 
richer than the mine, brighter than the jewel, and 
more glorious, when consecrated to its true end, than 
all the array of suns and stars. It is the crown of 
creative might. It is "the jewel in the ring of the 
world." It is the picture for which the wealth of 
Croesus, the power of Cassar and the splendors of empire 
can furnish no fitting frame. Even with all these, it may 
well seem like a gem set in clay. When its true worth 
is developed, it pours contempt on them all. 

Without man, without the human soul, what is this 
globe, but a mere curiosity of creative might ? It is upon 
the soul that the very wealth of infinite wisdom, power 
and love seems lavishly poured out. 

But the soul was intended for God's special service, 
and as the object of his special favor. No one can doubt 
it. The proof is in its constitution and workmanship. 
He evidently designed it to be what it is capable of 
being. And what is that ? Who can tell ? When you 
see a persecuting Saul become the Apostle Paul, and hear 
from his saintly lips, amid prison glooms and rigors the 
language of angelic triumph ; when you find the gentle- 
ness of the beloved John ripening into a heavenliness of 
tone and feeling, and hope and joy, till it seems scarcely 
strange that his Patmos Vision should become a daily 
experience ; w en you find a plain man like John How- 
ard, by the power of consecrated charity transformed 
into an angel of mercy, so that amid the foul air of jails 
he seems to breathe the atmosphere in which angels 



21 6 LIFE LESSONS. 

sing ; when you find even commonplace gifts and a com- 
monplace lot transfigured into the means and features of 
an earthly paradise by the presence, and prayer, and de- 
votion of a spirit that has bowed at the cross ; when you 
see the lowliest of mortals, a servant, or I had almost 
said a drudge, bearing about with him in his daily petty 
duties so much of heaven, that the greatest and wisest — 
like Archbishop Seeker — on a dying bed send for him, 
that on the fervor of his petition the departing spirit may 
be borne as it were up to the throne ; who dare say to 
what any one, even the humblest may not attain • what 
virtues may not chrystallize into a crown for his brow, 
what riches of reverence, and love, and unbought honor 
shall not embalm his memory ? 

Yet all this is only to what fallen man, by the 
grace of God attains ! Did God create the soul with- 
out designing this ? Did He make it capable of being 
a " king and priest unto himself' 7 when He only meant it 
to drag a muck-rake and gather straw ? Did He endow 
it with affections that can soar to heaven, when He 
meant it should scratch the dust and pick at crumbs ? 

No ! The soul of man was meant for all that it is 
capable of being. And its highest end — by the side of 
which that of imperial aspirants is but the ambition of 
an ant-hill — is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. 
The soul is to be yielded up to God, that His will may 
work in it and through it. It is to be plastic to the 
great purpose for which He made it. In a word, it is to 
be holy as He is holy ; it is to be His consecrated, His 
living temple — His sacred name inscribed on its portal — 
all the wealth of time and probation a willing sacrifice 
upon its altar. 

And how consonant and accordant is this with the 



THE LIVING TEMPLE. 217 

majesty of God and the blessedness of man ! A living 
temple! A human spirit within which the Eternal Spirit 
condescending will deign to dwell ! 

But is this the state of man's heart by nature ? Has 
the soul been kept pure and unsullied ? Who does not 
know that -it has been polluted and profaned? Stand as 
it were by the door of your heart and watch what goes 
in and out ? What are your thoughts by day and your 
dreams by night? Are they of heaven or of earth? 
Are they pure and self-denying or worldly and selfish ? 
Do they chime together in one chorus of praise to God, 
or are they discordant and inharmonious ? Are they of 
the altar or the market ; of duty or of pleasure, of Christ 
or of self? 

On the answer to these questions the verdict of your 
treatment of what God made and designed as His own 
temple — holier, more precious than human hands ever 
reared — depends. Have you filled it with the tables of 
the money changers? Is the voice of your thoughts 
rather the bleating of flocks than the anthem of praise — 
the jingling of coin than the voice of prayer ? 

Who is there among us all — where is the most devoted 
Christian that is not forced to confess to his own shame, 
that this spiritual temple has been polluted by the pre- 
sence within it of that which is unholy and impure — 
thoughts that he cannot approve, passions that he cannot 
justify, and yet for which he is responsible? It is a 
humbling confession. Has he betrayed his trust ? Has 
he, the guardian of that temple, allowed it to be dese- 
crated ? Has he surrendered it to the foul hoofs of sen- 
sual and worldly things, till the sacred presence is ex- 
cluded, and the great inhabitant, the Holy Spirit, has 
withdrawn ? 
10 



218 LIFE LESSONS. 



It was accounted even by heathens a crime of special 
enormity to desecrate a temple. They called it sacrilege. 
And what is sin, intruding by your own act into the tem- 
ple of your soul, denying its altar the sacrifice of a con- 
trite heart — but just sacrilege ? There is a temple God 
reared for Himself. And have you installed Mammon 
within it ? 

There are, doubtless, some hearts eminent for profana- 
tion. They are dens of malicious and murderous thoughts. 
Lust, and passion, and appetite, and reckless, Heaven-daring 
defiance, all are there. Avarice, and selfishness, and gloat- 
ing revenge are combined there in infernal league. You 
feel as you approach them that you are on the borders 
of Pandemonium. How far does a Herod, or a Nero, or 
a Jeffries, fall short of being a hell incarnate ? We re- 
gard with a shudder such monstrosities of depravity. 
We feel that in "the lowest deep" we have found "a deep 
still lower." And then how startling the thought that 
sin-polluted shrines, to which the scenes of Bacchanalian 
orgies might sometimes seem almost like vestal purity, 
were designed for a hallowed service, were meant as 
temples of the Holy Ghost ! 

It is true there are lesser degrees of depravity, but the 
least of them all is a profanation. A sinful thought is 
a sacrilegious intruder. A selfish aim cannot rank above 
a money-changer. An idle fancy is a trifler in that sanc- 
tuary, where every thought, and imagination, and emotion 
of the heart should bow down and adore. 

Alas for man ! He has become like the temple of Je- 
rusalem when Christ entered it. Unhallowed passions 
nestle there. The greed of gain has displaced devotion, 
and all the activity of the intellect and will, is often only 
to disobey his Maker. 



THE LIVING TEMPLE. 2 i 9 

But the object of the Gospel is to cleanse and restore 
and re-consecrate it to its proper, its hallowed service. 
See the ruin, and see at what cost the provision to re- 
store it is made ! What will effect the result ? Nothing 
short of the ■ means which God has devised. It is the 
blood of Jesus Christ that cleanseth from all sin. Noth- 
ing else does or can. It is the Spirit of God that re- 
news the heart. None but a divine might can rear again 
the pillars of resolve, and restore the purity of affection. 
Have you called for help? Have you applied to the 
blood of cleansing ? Have you opened your eyes to the 
greatness of the work? Have you aroused yourself to the 
urgency of the pressing, solemn duty ? It is that work 
without which no other work is of any avail. It is in 
vain to cultivate taste or science. How worthless to 
wreathe crumbled ruins with the twining ivy, or over- 
spread them with venerable moss, while on the desecra- 
ted altar within no sacrifice is laid, and through the 
hollow vaults echoes no anthem of praise, no note of 
prayer ! 

Christ comes to your heart to-day. He bids you fit it 
for His reception, for He would come in and dwell there. 
It is His Father's house. It is a temple of the Most 
High. You are its high priest, to offer within it sacri- 
fices of praise. Will you devote it to the traffic of mam- 
mon and to the revels of sin ? 



XXVI. 

LIYING FOR THE UNSEEN. 

" The things which are not seen are eternal." — 2 Cor. iv. 18. 

MAN occupies a middle point between two worlds, 
the seen and the unseen. He is himself united to 
each and compounded of both. He is body and soul, 
matter and spirit. On one side of him are material 
things, on the other, spiritual. He stands on the earth 
yet may commune with heaven. His body allies him to 
the worm, his spirit to the angel. He is a link between 
the visible and the invisible, the earthly and the heavenly. 
Hence, almost as a matter of necessity, he lives in two 
worlds, sometimes inclining more to one and sometimes 
to the other. But something, in spite of himself, he has 
to do with both. The most perfect materialist that ever 
lived, the veriest miser whose heart was ever cankered 
by his gold, the bold boasting disbeliever in all spiritual 
realities, lives more or less in the realm of the invisible. 
A man's own soul will be a world in itself, a world of 
unseen things, of thoughts and fancies, of hopes and fears, 
of speculations and anxieties, of schemes and cares ; a 
world of light and shade, of day and night, of clouds and 
sunshine, of storm and calm, of bald mountains and quiet 
valleys ; a world that would still exist to the soul though 
the whole outward and material universe were dissolved ; 
a world which is far more real, important, enduring, in- 
fluential for good or evil than the globe itself with all 

(220) 



LIVING FOB THE UNSEEN. 22 i 

that it contains. Is it not so ? Stop a man's ears, shut 
him up in total darkness, and into his prison, or into his 
voiceless solitude, he carries with him in his soul a world 
echoing with ten thousand voices, and bright or dark 
with ten thousand scenes of no material landscape. He 
sees no star-roofed vault above him, but his soul makes 
its own firmament ; he hears no human utterance, but his 
soul listens to speech from the invisible and immaterial. 
If he is a Herod, he will have the hell of his own 
thoughts around him. If a Stephen, he will gaze up 
even with sightless eyeballs into an opening heaven. 

Now, there is an infinite wisdom in that order of 
Providence which brings us into relations with two worlds 
at once. We are connected with matter in such a way 
that we may gain and gather out of material things their 
spiritual significance, and use them as helps by which to 
climb up to a region of spiritual attainment. We begin 
an immortal existence in the use and possession of a bod- 
ily frame, and we keep it just long enough for us, by 
means of it, to come in contact with the spiritual truths, 
and laws, and relations that it is most essential for us to 
know. Sensible things are emblems out of which the soul 
reads a meaning, because in God's plan they are figures and 
diagrams by which we solve life's problems, the visible 
things by which the invisible are demonstrated or ex- 
plained. The body is a sort of scaffolding by the aid of 
which we build up our own spiritual structure, and when 
character is complete, and the soul is reared to the ma- 
turity of its stature, the scaffolding is thrown down, the 
body crumbles away, and the soul, built up and furnished 
for eternity, stands complete and forever independent of 
the instrumentalities by which it was reared. 

Such is the use of the body, such the intent of the Ore- 



222 LIFE LESSONS. 

ator undoubtedly in linking us to the clay. Things that 
are seen, that are material, are a kind of footstool on 
which we may stand to reach up higher toward another 
world, a ladder to climb by, alphabet blocks of wood by 
the study of which we learn to spell out the laws and phi- 
losophy of God, cuts and diagrams to illustrate to the 
spirit's capacity the methods of providence and the les- 
sons of life. Thus viewed, the body, the world and all 
sensible things, have their sphere — and a wise one, — 
and so they ought to be viewed. Their use is transient. 
It lasts at the longest but a few score of years. Then 
the soul has been educated and furnished to do without 
them and they are thrown by. The unseen world of the 
soul is now ready to begin its independent existence. It 
has gathered from the visible all that the visible can give. 
It has learned its alphabet ; it can throw aside its blocks 
and its spelling-book, and read what angels do. 

Now what a gross perversion it is of all the aims of 
life, when a man lives for time, and sense, and the things 
that are seen : when on these he concentrates his hopes 
and fears ; when in these he chooses to live and move and 
be absorbed ; when, given up to the visible, he forgets the 
invisible, and seems to feel that he lives only for material 
interests and material good ! This is sensualism, ma- 
terialism, worldliness. It sacrifices the greater to less. 
It idolizes the brute and crucifies the angel. It makes 
the body its God, and the soul a hewer of wood and 
a drawer of water, just reversing their true relation- 
ship. It is as if a man should demolish his dwelling to 
furnish his tent, as if he should tear down a Temple of 
Solomon to supply the tabernacle of the desert. 

Yet this is what thousands do — not only the avowed 
materialist who denies, in the face of all evidence, all 



LIVING FOR THE UNSEEN. 



223 



spiritual existence, with, the Sadducee for his prototype, 
ignoring God, angel and spirit, but the multitudes of 
practical materialists, who try to live, for they can at 
best but try, in" the region of material things alone. 
Some grasp gold as the highest good. Some idolize a 
ribbon or a feather, and never feel the majesty of a great, 
good thought. Some devote themselves to sensual indul- 
gence, forgetful that there are joys which eye hath not 
seen nor ear heard. Some count their wealth by the 
standard of earthly value and spurn the riches of the 
soul's incorruptible inheritance — a treasure that no line 
can measure and no scales weigh — and some even fly to 
the visible world for relief from the invisible ; use pleas- 
ure, and amusement, and games, and business as a di- 
version and a foil to thoughts of duty. They take this 
world, that should be made a causeway over which to 
pass to heaven, to build up a Chinese wall that shall shut 
out every view or approach of everlasting spiritual truths 
and realities. All this is supreme folly. It is more ; it 
is gross wickedness, treason to the soul and to God, false- 
hood to all the ends and aims of life. 

In the first place it is debasing ; more or less so in 
proportion to the degree in which a man gives himself 
up to it. I cannot look at a man who has devoted his 
years either to sensualism, or to mere money-making, or 
to pleasure, without a feeling of pity, in which it is hard 
not to have contempt mingled. His heart has grown to 
his sin, or lust, or gold like a shell to the rock. He is 
rooted to things seen. He degenerates into a mere 
thing. He becomes selfish, miserly, materialistic, in his 
views. His soul is petrified. Even when the body is 
worn out and is already crumbling back to clay, you can 



224 LIFE LESSORS. 

talk to him only of sensual or material interests. He 
can scheme only for lust, or gain, or some paltry plan of 
self-gratification. His thoughts go no higher than the 
ceiling of his room, no deeper than his furrow. It is hu- 
miliating to look at him, to see in him how humanity 
can become debased. A libertine, a miser, an idolater 
of fashion, he has no taste or relish for anything purer 
or nobler than models of clay or images of corruption. 
He looks to the things that are seen. 

Now, take his contrast ; the man like Paul that ad- 
mits, and believes in a world of truth, and duty, and 
spiritual reality, who converses daily with the invisible 
and the eternal ; a man to whom all the material uni- 
verse is but a glass through which the soul reads lessons 
of hope, and faith, and love ; one whose eye ranges be- 
yond the horizon of time and sense, and takes in an in- 
finite prospect ; one who sinks the body into subservience 
to the spirit, and who makes all the experience of life, its 
pains and pleasures, toil and rest, trials and triumphs, 
help to the development of a holy life and preparation 
for final blessedness ; and who does not feel that in the 
presence of such an one he stands face to face with a 
worth and wealth that beggar the world ? He is carry- 
ing out God's plan in his education. He looks to things 
that are unseen. 

And not to do this is to disregard most stupidly what most 
concerns our happiness. It is not the outward world or out- 
ward circumstances that can suffice to make a man happy. 
His earthly lot is a poor test of his enjoyment. Penury 
in rags may sometimes be more enviable than all wealth 
and splendor. Eden landscapes cannot make Eden 
hearts. Happiness does not bloom, like trees, perennial 
in the tropics. It is the heart that makes the world we 



LIVING FOB THE UNSEEN. 225 

live in. It is a man's thoughts, the forms that pass be- 
fore the mind's eye, that leave the most abiding impres- 
sions. It is the immaterial world of ideas that we 
converse with most. The mind daguerreotypes all dead 
and living forms, and far more ; its fancies, and fears, and 
hopes, and convictions go to make the solitude of its 
thinking hours populous. One may walk through scenes 
like the happy valley of Rasselas and carry a Vesuvius 
in his heart. One may look out on the placid sky, when 
not a breath of wind stirs, or a leaf rustles, and there 
shall be a hurricane in his bosom. Do you think a man 
is happy because he lives in a palace and calls broad 
acres his own ? His heart may even then be a beggar 
cryiog, " give, give ! " The icebergs of the ocean have 
to float down all the way from the North Pole, and then 
they will melt away ; but a man's soul under all the sun- 
shine of a tropical fortune may be even to the last like an 
unimpressible iceberg. 

If you wish to know any one's real condition, you must 
look below the surface. It is not his wardrobe, nor his 
wealth, nor his honors, that make the real world in which 
he lives. Do you think Cain could be a materialist 
when the dire spectre of his murdered brother haunted 
him — a stern reality — and his own terror forced him to 
say, " every one that seeth me shall slay me ?" Do you 
think Esau was a materialist, when the image of the lost 
blessing, the unseen good, moved him to bitter and re- 
morseful tears ? Do you think a sinless Eden could have 
made Saul happy when the evil spirit troubled him? 
Was it any visible, material loss that drove Judas to 
suicide? What but the impalpable image of his in- 
gratitude sent Peter forth to weep bitterly ? Was there 
any pit dug by human hands, any surging gulf which 
10* 



226 LIFE LESSONS. 



human eye could scan, in which Simon Magus was 
plunged, when the Apostle said of him, " I perceive thou 
art in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity ?" 
Ah ! it is true, as the poet has said : 

" The mind is its own place 
And makes a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." 

The elements that a man carries with him in his own 
bosom are to him the most real of all things. Call them 
mere fancies ; rate them as airy shapes ; scout them as 
phantoms. Put them in the scales and say they do not 
weigh a feather. Make them out just nothing avoirdupois. 
But yet remember these unseen things, these impalpa- 
ble forms and airy shapes have more to do with a man 
than all other things beside. Even the drunkard, raving 
in delirium, and made a maniac by images of horror that 
no eye sees but his own, shows how, when the thing is 
brought to a test, the immaterial in man triumphs over 
the material, and the mind's furniture of thoughts and 
fancies is the most real, while all else is but as shadows. 
Give me the man who looks at the unseen, and whose 
conscience is in harmony with its truth and its claims, 
and I will show you one who with Joseph can endure the 
solitude of the prison without a murmur ; or with Daniel 
shall calmly pray to God and not fear even the lion's 
den, or with the dying Stephen under the shower of 
stones shall look up with a smile to the opening heavens, 
or with Paul and Silas shall make the midnight gloom 
of a prison vocal with songs of praise to God. Such 
may be, such has been, the communion of the soul with 
its unseen Helper, the feast of the soul upon the hidden 
manna, the refreshment of the soul from the unseen foun- 
tains of truth and duty, of faith and love, that the flesh 



. 






LIVING FOR THE UNSEEN. 



227 



could be mangled on the rack, or crumble to cinders at 
the stake, almost without a consciousness of pain, and 
while the face of every beholder has gathered fear and 
terror, the face of the victim has been lighted up with 
beams from the unseen glory. 

But not to look at the unseen, is to disregard that which 
is most important. You look at a diagram on the black- 
board. What are those lines and angles, considered in 
themselves, but just so much pulverized chalk in right 
lines. But look through the seen to the unseen, and you 
shall see those simple lines constructed to bring out a 
geometrical truth, a link in that chain of mathematical 
discovery that reaches from the fixed staple of simple 
axioms up to the highest point of scientific attainment. 
It marks a step in the progress of man up from barbarism 
to that stage of civilization in which the iron and the 
marble take form under his plastic hand, and the rude 
forces of Nature bend to his will almost to realize the 
fable of Orpheus charming them by the music of his 
lyre. So we say material things in themselves are of no 
more importance than so much bulk or dead matter, ex- 
cept as they are the forms out of which the student of 
Providence can educe unseen lessons. What is the 
grandest peak of the Andes to a noble thought ? What 
is the fairest landscape to a beautiful or generous deed ? 
What is the majesty of the Amazon to the current of a 
holy life moving on irresistibly in the channel of duty 
and bearing down all obstacles, even the terrors of death 
before it ? To talk of dollars and cents when duty is 
concerned ; to speak of balance of trade or of revenue 
when the principles of right action are at stake ; to be 
absorbed in calculations of profit and loss when virtue 



LIFE LESSONS. 



or humanity are bleeding their life away, seems to me 
worse, if possible, than Nero fiddling while Rome burned. 
One of the most stultifying and ludicrous exhibitions of 
materialism that I can now recall is to be found in a mi- 
nority report of a committee of our State Legislature on 
petitions for closing the canals on the Sabbath. This 
report, not pretending absolutely to deny the importance 
of religious convictions, goes on to speak of " the tremen- 
dous effect upon the revenues of the State, and upon the 
prosperity if not the very being of the canal itself, which 
might possibly be the result of granting the prayer of the 
petitioners." It is as if one should speak of the tremen- 
dous weight of a pebble when an avalanche threatened 
to overwhelm him. I am sure that all material interests 
combined — railroads, and canals, and rivers, and lakes — 
might better be sunk in the ocean, than just help to peo- 
ple and enrich a land given up to Sabbath desecration, 
soon to be shaken by those earthquakes of terrible retri- 
bution, which like that in France at the close of the last 
century, when the Sabbath was legislated away, will 
make men feel that Pandemonium is let loose on earth. 
To weigh cargoes against principles, revenue against in- 
tegrity, tolls or income against the fear of God, is as 
absurd as to calculate the value of the self-denial of a 
Paul, the benevolence of a Howard, or the patriotism of 
a Washington, in specie or bank notes. The riches of a 
community, as of an individual, are not to be found in its 
purse or its common treasury. They are not to be com- 
puted by stock in trade or annual income. They exist 
in that which casts all material interests altogether in 
the shade, in the elements of character and education 
and capacity for true and noble deeds — not in the seen 
but in the unseen. 






LIVING FOR THE UNSEEN. 229 

It is the invisible world, of truth and duty which towers 
infinitely above all earth-bounded schemes and interests. 
I cannot but regard a man who, surrounded by the Eter- 
nal and the Infinite, and possessed of a soul whose native 
aspirations and aptitudes fit it to grasp hold of thoughts 
as grand as God's being, and an immortal destiny, yet 
grovels in the dust-siftings of time and sense, as I must 
on one who should gaze absorbed upon a little bubbling 
rill in full sight of Niagara Falls, and yet have no eye to 
behold or admire that emblem of Omnipotence. I would 
say to him, " Lift up your soul, man ; fling away your 
straws and chips, and think of a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens. Fling down your crutches 
and try your wings. Crawl no longer as a worm, but 
soar to be an angel. Drop your microscope with which 
you gaze at the minute atoms of chalk on God's black- 
board, and read the meaning of those lines and angles, 
where eternity and the laws of probation are diagrammed. 
Aspire no more to be merely respectable. There is an 
unseen bar where the King Invisible will judge the judges 
you fear so much. The seen is nothing to the unseen. 
It is the merely material shadow that marks where God's 
truths are passing by. It is the emblem that you are to 
look through, and then it is God's telescope to unfold 
worlds that Herschel and Ross never discovered, and of 
which mere science never dreamed." 

But to look to the seen rather than the unseen, and to 
the exclusion of it, is the grossest folly when you con- 
sider that the things that are seen are temporal, and that 
the things that are unseen are eternal. All that we be- 
hold with the outward eye is transient and will pass 
away. Change and ruin are written upon it all. These 



230 LIFE LESSONS. 

bodies shall crumble to dust. The dwellings of your 
poverty or your pride will be razed to their foundations. 
The robes you wear will become rags and be cast aside. 
Your possessions will pass from your grasp, and all the 
conveniences of your comfort and all the resources of 
your affluence will vanish away. Time covers the world 
with his ravages. He passes over empires, and his hoof 
of destruction realizes for them the boast of Attila. 
Pyramids and pillared marble and triumphal monuments 
crumble under his eye, and when he has done his work, 
a mightier hand shall sweep away his ruins and his 
structures, and 

K The great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherits shall dissolve, 
And like the baseless fabric of a vision 
Leave not a wreck behind." 

The triumphs of art, the masterpieces of the sculptor, 
on which he toiled to immortalize his name, the lofty 
domes which attest the loftier aspirations of architectural 
genius, all the material gains and achievements of busy 
millions, and of all ages, shall live only in memory, and 
the place that knew them once shall know them no more. 

But the unseen world, and all that belongs to it, is 
imperishable. Ages shall not annihilate or have power 
over it. God will still be the " King, eternal, immortal, 
invisible." The soul will live, unencumbered longer 
with the burdens of the flesh. The elements of thought 
and character will survive the grave. A holy life will 
be an ark of hallowed memories and deeds that will 
float over the deluge that buries all the scenes of its con- 
secrated effort. The invisible laws of retribution, the 
inviolability of justice, the everlasting beauty of holiness, 



LIVING FOR THE UNSEEN. 231 

the unchanging blessedness of purity of heart — all these 
will survive. The soul itself will carry with it to the 
judgment-seat of God all the elements of that unseen 
world within, in which it is to live forever. That world 
is imperishable. Not an impression is lost. Not a 
memory dies. The tastes, appetites, aspirations, loves or 
hates, hopes or fears of the soul will follow it where it 
can carry nothing else. It will have all those, without 
the encumbrance or the alleviation of sensual existence. 
The drunkard, or the libertine, or the miser, with all their 
raging lusts or ingrained habits, but with nothing to 
satisfy them ; the ambitious or proud man, with no mate- 
rial means to gratify the greed of a ruling passion ; the 
worldly man, accustomed to lean on the world for his joy 
and diversion and gratification, but now with no such re- 
source — all these, in that conscious guilt which no eye 
can see, and that conscious misery the heart only knows, 
will illustrate how much of perdition a man can carry 
with him on earth, how thoroughly he may be mastered 
by that undying worm of inward craving that fed on the 
world once, but feeds on the sinner now. 

But that soul which is God's living temple, and in 
which he abides, is a world in itself of peace and joy. 
No matter where you place it, with Daniel in a lions' 
den ; with the outlawed confessor of Christ, in the glens 
or caves of the earth ; in the fires of trial ; in the deep 
waters of affliction ; in light or darkness ; in the land 
Beulah, or in the valley of the shadow of death — its faith 
brings God near it, into it, and it triumphs in the 
thought, independent of earth's hindrances or its helps. 
It lives in the unseen, and into the darkest glooms of 
earth it brings with it the splendors of God's eternal 
day forever shining on its path. 



2 3 2 LIFE LESSONS. 



+\,* 



We may see, therefore, how fatal a policy it is for the 
soul to yield itself up to the things that are seen, to 
live as though it had only to do with time and sense. 
You would, perhaps, smile to see a man offering his hand 
to shadows, or presuming to evade their blows. You 
would count him a simpleton or a maniac. But all the 
worldly successes and applause of life are to the soul 
that leans on God no more than the hand of a shadow, 
and all the blows which the world can inflict are no more 
than the blows of a shadow. " Fear not," said Christ, 
" them that can kill the body, and after that have no 
more that they can do, but fear ye rather Him who can 
cast both soul and body into hell, yea I say unto you, 
fear Him I" 

And yet how many fly to the seen to escape the un- 
seen, like Adam hasting to the thicket from the voice 
of God ! How many rush into business, or pleasure, or 
schemes of amusement, or to diverting scenes, to escape 
from conviction or from the arrest of conscience ! That 
unseen officer of the invisible Judge is at least no phan- 
tom, for to escape him the soul plunges deeper into 
material schemes and interests. Oh, beware of this ! 
Run not away to hide yourself from the Unseen but All- 
seeing ! You must meet God at last — meet him now ! 

Once more each one is making the world in which he 
is to live forever. How carefully should he proceed. 
The man who builds his house to live in it for a score or 
two of years, is careful in the building and the furnishing 
of it. His eye will rest upon it often. It is to be his 
home. It will minister in all its arrangements to his 
convenience or his discomfort. You do not chide him 
for his care. 

Well, then, let us suppose that God offers you the privi- 






LIVING FOR TEE UNSEEN. 



2 33 



lege of making a world. He says, " Here are the mate- 
rials for it, and here are the powers to shape them. You 
may make it what you like. Here is soil that will make 
gardens, water that will make rivers and oceans, granite 
masses that will make Alps or Andes. All that is grand 
or beautiful, magnificent or terrible, barren or frightful, 
is here furnished to your hand. Make a world of them 
to suit your taste, and you may have it for your own, to 
live in and enjoy for ten thousand years." Would it not 
be a magnificent offer ? 

Well, God has done far more than this. He has given 
you a soul, that outweighs in value and in resources all 
the material universe, and he has given you probation 
and its means to shape and mould it at your will. He 
says, " Make that into a world to suit your taste, make 
it to suit you to live in and enjoy, not ten thousand, but 
ten thousand times ten thousand years." And you have 
already begun to shape and mould it. What and how 
much have you done ? Have you planted it with heaven- 
ward hopes and aspirations — those cedars of Lebanon in 
the garden of God, or with the thorns, thistles and bram- 
bles of worldly cares ? Have you solemnly and prayer- 
fully invited the guidance of God and His counsel to 
direct you in the momentous undertaking ? 



XXVII. 

THE STANDARD OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



"Follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness ."- 
1 Tim. vi. 11. 



NO one who attentively peruses the Scriptures can 
remain in doubt of the high standard of a Chris- 
tian life. " Follow me/' says the Saviour. That is, be 
like me. " Be ye holy, as your Father in heaven is holy." 
Bead over the life of Christ and you will see what the 
life of a Christian should be. There is the standard. 
There is no other ; not the life of a minister — not that of 
any man, however eminent or devoted — not that of a 
Doddridge, or Payson, or Brainerd, or Edwards, or Bax- 
ter, or Bunyan. No one sooner than these men would 
say, " Look not to us, but to Jesus." 

Paul rebukes the tendency common with many, of 
virtually saying to themselves, " I can do what such an 
one does," or, " No more can be expected of me than of 
such an one." He says, " They that compare themselves 
among themselves, and measure themselves by themselves, 
are not wise." It would be just as proper for a merchant 
to measure his cloth by the old burnt fragment of a yard- 
stick as for a Christian to measure the aim of his life by 
the imperfect examples of a Christian brother. Christ 

(234) 



STANDARD OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



235 



is spoken of as " leaving us an example that we should 
follow in his steps.' 7 The measure of the yard in Eng- 
land was once adjusted by the arm of the King, and then 
the standard was placed for preservation and reference in 
the Tower of London. Christ's life is our standard, and it 
is safely preserved in the pages of the New Testament that 
will last when the Tower of London is all dust. " Look- 
ing unto Jesus," is the Christian's motto. If, therefore, we 
can ascertain the characteristics of his life, we can see 
what ours should be — what it must be, if he is ever 
to own his image in us, and to acknowledge us as his 
followers. 

First, then, it was pure and holy. " He did no sin, 
neither was guile found in his mouth." His bitterest foes 
could find no immorality in his life — nothing on which 
to base a charge against him. There was no impure 
lust, no selfish or ambitious aim ; No covetousness after 
worldly possessions ; no angry passions ; no envy, jealousy, 
spite, or pride. His words were true, serious, faithful. 
His deeds were kind, just, and humane. In the parable 
of the Good Samaritan he has sketched the spirit of that 
life that could feed the hungry, give sight to the blind, 
weep at the grave of Lazarus, and pour consolation into 
the heart of the humbled publican. He did not shrink 
from the touch of the poor and wretched. All might 
approach him. He could make his home with the humble 
family of Bethany. He could dine with Zaccheus. He 
did not shun contact with any one whom he could bless, 
be they centurions, or publicans and sinners. He went 
through the world like the sunbeam, enlightening others, 
but contracting no impurity himself. There was no 
aping of wealth or greatness, no over-anxiety for even 
the necessaries of life, no respect of persons, no desire 



236 LIFE LESSONS. 

for the world's empty honors, no concern that the rich 
and the great only despised him. 

And then, as love is the fulfilling of the law, his life 
was full of love. He prayed for all. He had glad ti- 
dings for all. He forgave his enemies and prayed God 
to forgive them. His life was the toil of love for 
wretched men, and his death was its triumphant and per- 
fect exhibition. Not a malicious or revengeful thought 
did he cherish, not even amid the ignominious insults of 
his crucifixion. 

His self-denial, also, was the evidence and the fruit of 
his love. Never before or since has anything like it been 
seen or known. He left the glory of Heaven for the 
meanness of a human lot. He left the worship of angels, 
to incur the maledictions of men. He exchanged the 
throne of Heaven for a cross of shame. He had the 
power of working miracles, but exercised it for the 
benefit of others, never for his own. And all this was 
for no selfish end. Compassion for wretched and guilty 
men, was the motive that led to this self-denial. 

And beside all, he was eminently and uninterrupt- 
edly devoted to glorifying God — to the accomplishment 
of the work of his mission. " Wist ye not that I must 
be about my Father's business ?" was his question when 
a child in the temple. " Work while it is day, for the 
night cometh when no man can work,' 7 was an admoni- 
tion which his life as well as lips enforced. There was 
no indolence, no indifference. Even when he sat down 
weary upon the well of Samaria, he was busy for God. 
He made the flowers of the field preach, and the sower's 
seed furnish him emblems. He organized his disciples 
into bands, and sent them forth to work. He communi- 
cated his own activity to those around him. All his 



STANDARD OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



237 



talents, all his powers were devoted to the great work 
of his mission. 

Such is a most brief and imperfect sketch of His ex- 
ample whose authority must be acknowledged by all that 
bear the Christian name. It is the rule which we are to 
copy. He whom we acknowledge as our Master has set 
it for us. It is faultless. It is perfect. It is the only one 
that fixes the measure and scope of our aims. And now 
see what a life that must be that just copies Christ ; how 
pure, kind, holy, loving, prayerful, self-denying, devoted ! 
How active and energetic in the work of doing good ! 
Take the holiest and best men that have ever lived — the 
Apostles enduring perils of every kind, that amid hard- 
ship, and abuse, and imprisonment, they might exhibit the 
spirit as well as declare the doctrines of the Gospel ; 
" the noble army of the martyrs " welcoming persecution, 
or torture, or death for the testimony of Jesus ; the mis- 
sionaries of the cross, leaving home and native land be- 
hind them in order to bestow upon ignorant and wretched 
tribes the unsearchable riches of Christ ; the prayerful, 
and devoted, and self-denying men who in humble sta- 
tions have made it manifest that they were men of G-od, 
and were toiling to bless others and save their own 
souls — take all these, and hear them every one confessing 
their own weaknesses, and deficiencies, and failings, as 
compared with the one only example, and then judge, if 
ye bear the Christian name, what manner of persons ye 
ought to be in all holy conversation and godliness, if ye 
are not to dishonor that holy name wherewith ye are 
called. Surely, the standard of a Christian life is a high 
one. 

We see this, moreover, when we consider its object. 
Why does God hold up before us such an example as that 



2 3 8 LIFE LESSONS. 

of Jesus ? It is that we may be transformed into the same 
image from glory to glory. It is to make that an instru- 
ment in our training to be like God himself. The whole 
scope of redemption is to recover our lost race — to bring 
men back to God. The Gospel hope reaches after 
nothing higher than the blessedness of perfect holiness. 
Without holiness it is impossible to please God. With- 
out holiness no one shall see the Lord. It is only as we 
are like Christ that we are fitted for heaven. Nothing 
unholy or impure can be admitted there. Sin would mar 
its beauty, and disturb its peace, and make discord in its 
anthems. An unholy heart there, beneath the glance of 
a holy God, would be out of place. It would feel itself 
an alien, a stranger, an exile from all with which it could 
sympathize. 

A Christian, then, is one that is in training for the 
holiness of heaven ; one that God is teaching and disci- 
plining to be an angel ; one that is aiming and striving 
to reach that eternal home, which is made glorious by 
the presence of a holy God. Here he is a sojourner and 
a pilgrim. All his interests, his treasure, his hope, are 
in heaven. He fails of everything if he fails in these, 
and he must fail, if he is not like Christ. 

See, too, how the standard of a Christian life is sug- 
gested by what the Scriptures say of those that bear the 
sacred name of disciple : " Ye are my witnesses/' says 
God. What can an unholy man, what can an unrenewed 
heart, what can a worldly mind testify as to the loving- 
kindness, and the glorious holiness, and the spotless ex- 
cellence of Jehovah ? " Ye are the light of the world," 
says Christ ; but what sort of a light is that which emits 
rays of darkness, that light which is all blurred over and 
eclipsed by worldly passions, by spots of impurity, by 



STANDARD OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



239 



conduct that challenges the reproach of men ? " Ye are 
the salt of the earth f but what virtue has that to com- 
municate which cannot preserve itself, and what excel- 
lence must there be to warrant the truthful application 
of these words ? 

The Christian, moreover, has had great things done 
for him of which his life is to be the witness. He is 
called by God's message, he is redeemed by the blood of 
the Son of God, he is renewed by the power of the Holy 
Ghost. Infinite grace has called him out from darkness 
into God's marvellous light. He has seen God in Christ 
reconciling the world to himself. He has felt the evil 
of sin in his own nature, and has read its odiousness in 
the tragedy of the cross. Eternity has been unfolded to 
him. The unsearchable riches of Christ have been ex- 
hibited to him. Heaven has opened its gates to invite 
him thither. To him the Apostle turns, when he says, 
" Ye are redeemed not by corruptible things as silver and 
gold, but by the precious blood of the Lamb of God." Is 
such an one to be content with a low and worldly stand- 
ard of living ? Is he to make self his idol ? Is he to 
indulge in the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and 
the pride of life ? Is he to live like the sin-blinded dev- 
otee of Mammon, to indulge in passion, envy, malice, re- 
venge, covetousness, pride ? Is he to allow himself to 
drift along on the current of the world, comforming him- 
self to the standards of fashion, the indolence of his own 
nature, or the humors of the hour ? 

Even the world itself, conscious of the glaring contra- 
diction, indignantly replies, No ! Mere men of the world, 
strangers to the spirituality of the Gospel claims, can see 
that they are very high, and they look to the Christian 
disciple for a conduct that shall show principles of action 



240 LIFE LESSONS. 



and aims above their own ; and however unfit they may 
be to taunt those that come short, the very taunt shows 
how they take the standard of a Christian life to be 
something pure, and exalted, and holy, and heavenlike — 
pure gold to their dross. 

And if we think of the work which the Church is to 
accomplish, we see that it can be accomplished only as a 
high standard of Christian life and character is sustained. 
This world is to be converted to God, and the instru- 
ments for doing it are men ; but they must be holy men. 
The work can be done by no others. It is not wealth, 
or talent, or royal patronage that can do it. Genius 
may exhaust itself in setting forth the excellence of the 
Gospel. Material means may be multiplied beyond all 
precedent in the work of spreading it ; but all these will 
be only the shell of a rotten trunk, if vital piety, the very 
heart of the Christian life is wanting. Worldly men 
cannot convert the world. Half Christians cannot do it. 
Any quantity of Pilates, or Agrippas, or Demases can- 
not do it. A popular vote of the nations in favor of it 
would not do it. The eloquence that is not enkindled by 
charity is only as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. 
It is the living piety of the church — back of all sermons 
however studied, all creeds however orthodox, all rites 
however simple — that gives them force. Our logic can 
not argue men through the strait gate. Our warnings 
can not startle from the lethargy of death in sin. But 
there is a power in the life of a consistent and devoted 
Christian which defies the indifference of the worldling 
and the unbelief of the sceptic. They cannot sneer it 
down. They cannot ignore it. It is a living witness 
against them, always testifying to a reality that accuses 
them. Here is the strength of the Church. Not the 



STANDARD OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 241 

great names of her ministers or prelates, not the increase 
of her numbers, not the outward respect which she re- 
ceives from statesmen, and poets, and politicians ; but 
the living, active piety of her members, their exem- 
plary and devoted spirit, their prayerfulness, humility and 
Christlikeness ; these are the weapons of her warfare, 
not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down 
of strongholds. These make her more terrible than an 
army with banners. These bring down to her aid the 
omnipotence of God. Those lives, then, that do not come 
up to this standard, say, virtually, " abandon the great 
work for which the Saviour lived and died. Let the 
world perish in its sin ; pronounce Christianity a failure, 
and abandon it." But we cannot abandon it. We say, 
rather let the Church live up to her high standard. And 
it must be high. It must be such that men shall read 
Christ in it ; such that he shall be preached in it ; such 
that men who never open the lids of the Bible shall have 
a living gospel before them. 

But what is now the condition of the Christian Church ? 
What is the state of the vast mass that compose it ? Alas ! 
how has the gold become dim, how is the most fine gold 
changed ! We are too deeply conscious in ourselves of 
the discrepancy between what we are, and what we should 
be, to question the change that has come over the Church 
since those early days when the little band of disciples 
gathered in an upper chamber in Jerusalem constituted 
the whole visible strength that was to grapple with the 
heathenisms of the world and the superstitions of ages. 
There are some, indeed, who are exceptions to the general 
rule ; some who have not defiled the garments of their 
profession ; some who mourn in secret over the desola- 
11 




242 LIFE LESSONS. 

tions of Zion ; some who live to do their Master's will. 
But how few these are ! 

Where do you find the true standard of a Christian 
life aimed at ? Go into the walks of commerce, and 
where are the men who carry the sense of their steward- 
ship to God with them to their stores and their desks ? 
Where are they who bear about with them into the 
world the consciousness that they are witnesses for God ? 
Almost every where you see the idolatry of Mammon ; 
all the heart, and mind, and soul, and strength absorbed 
in making money ; the weariness of six days of excessive 
toil, robbing the seventh of its energy for serving God ; 
indolence eating out devotion ; selfishness displacing 
self-denial ; praise neglected and prayer forgotten. How 
often do religious services become the mere routine of 
habit, and Sabbath observance the mere tribute to a 
practice that has lost its vitality. How might an observ- 
ing heathen, judging us in mass, write back to his country- 
men that our devotion consisted in the patient endurance 
of having two sermons weekly poured down the throat 
of the intellect, and that the activities of the Church were 
absorbed in the process ! 

In some cases, who would suspect a man of being one 
that bears the Christian name ? He shows the same 
tastes, sympathies, and habits as his unconverted neigh- 
bor. In his household he is not the Christian parent ; 
in his business he is not the Christian trafficker. Some- 
times you see him passionate, grasping for gain, hurrying 
as eagerly to scenes of amusement as the true disciple 
will to the place of prayer. 

In fact, there are many Christians by profession, who 
make of this, two distinct worlds j one the world of relig- 
ious ordinance, the other of secular profit. A man is 



* STANDARD OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 243 

the saint in the one and the worldling in the other. He 
goes out from the sanctuary and forgets what manner of 
man he was. He puts away his piety with his Sunday 
wardrobe. His hand is devout when it holds a Bible, 
but a creature of party when it casts a vote. 

Can this be justified ? Is this an age when we may 
lower the Christian standard ? Have the apostolic band, 
" the noble army of the martyrs/' the hosts of those who 
have " passed through great tribulation and washed their 
robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" — 
have all these, headed by their great Leader, preceded 
us only that we should dishonor their illustrious example, 
and prove ourselves unworthy to follow in their steps ? 
Has the world become such that it no longer needs to 
have " living epistles" of piety and devotion spread be- 
fore it for admonition and rebuke ? Has the missionary 
sent back word from his heathen field that the kingdoms 
of this world have become the kingdoms of Christ ? Is 
there no longer any call to self-denial, to importunate 
prayer, to holy living, to enduring hardships as good 
soldiers of Christ ? Has the order of discipline in the 
great " sacramental host of God's elect" been recalled ? 
Is Christ's life our pattern no longer ? Is it henceforth 
an easy thing to enter in at the strait gate ? 

Let no man deceive himself. Till the goal is reached ; 
till we apprehend that for which also we are apprehended 
of Christ Jesus, we are to follow after righteousness, 
godliness, faith and love. 






XXVIII. 

THE TENT AND THE ALTAR. 

" And there he builded an altar unto the Lord." — Gen. xii. 7. 

WHAT a significant, although brief and simple, 
record is that which teaches us that the old 
patriarch had his altar where he pitched his tent ! It was 
not enough to constitute his home that his family should 
be around him. He must have the assurance that the 
Eternal Father was present to watch over all. 

A grand sight that was in the heart of the old heathen- 
ism — that one man against the world almost — that soli- 
tary relic of Eden memories, green yet amid the wide 
desolations — that altar of a pure worship like the ark of 
the deluge, the sole resting-place for the foot of pilgrim 
piety ! See that standard for the true God set up, more 
sublime than granite monument or obelisk, yet reared by 
a humble home, and casting its shadow over the ground 
where the children played ! It is to them hearthstone, 
temple, church spire, all in one. It is the symbol of all 
that we hold dear between the pages of the Bible. There 
it stands, more than a fortress to guard that home ; more 
than a sanctuary to kindle devotion ; an ever-speaking 
witness for God, the prophetic pledge that the world's 
great sacrifice was yet to be offered. 

And what a noble character is that of the old patriarch ! 
No worldly conformist is he — no mere time-server. See 
how with a world against him he builds his altar ; see 

(244) 



THE TENT AND THE ALTAR 



245 



how in the solid stones of the pile, he writes out as in 
granite letters his confession of the true God ; see how 
he sets it up before the eyes of his household, and how 
tent and altar rise side by side. 

Ah, give us such piety as that ! which, even though no 
church or temple be near, will make its own home a sanc- 
tuary, and bring the glory of a Horeb or a Calvary down 
beside its lowly tent. 

The example of Abraham is one to be copied. Every 
tent should have its altar, every home its mercy-seat. 
The father should be the priest of his own household. 
Each family should offer with united heart, its morning 
and its evening sacrifice. 

Does not the very statement carry a convincing force 
with it ? Who that believes in the loving Providence of 
the great Father would call it in question ? Who but 
feels constrained to admire the beauty, the hallowing and 
peaceful influence of family worship ? 

True, it may degenerate into an empty form. It may 
sink into a hollow and heartless service. It may become 
a drudgery, and repel rather than attract. But this will 
be only when the life of piety is chilled and benumbed by 
worldliness, when the heart is drawn off to earthly idols, 
when the great truths of immortality and redemption are 
neglected or forgotten. 

Every community should have its altar, its place of 
public worship and common and united devotion. Abra- 
ham's altar was the type of both social and family relig- 
ion — the devotion of temple and of hearthstone together. 
He was alone in the world as the worshipper of the true 
God. There were few or none others to join him in 
public prayer or praise. Yet he reared an altar about 



246 LIFE LESSONS. 

which others might gather. How heartily he would have 
welcomed them if they had come to join him in the sao 
rifice ! 

So wherever there is a Christian family, although the 
only one in the community, there should be the nucleus, 
the center, of a Christian church. Let the wide waters 
of worldliness stretch like a waste around — there should 
be an island, or at least an ark of refuge. There a testi- 
mony should be borne for God ; there a standard set up to 
gladden and cheer the eye of every pious beholder. 

You must sometimes have felt the beauty of that sym- 
bol of Christian worship, as journeying far away, you 
have caught sight of some humble village church, with 
the clustering dwellings reposing in quiet peace beneath 
the shadow of its spire pointing like a finger to heaven. 
There it stood the type of a common worship, the mon- 
ument rising aloft to greet the eye of the traveler on his 
journey and the laborer at his toil. There it stood, in the 
silent eloquence of its very aspect, preaching every day as 
well as Sabbath, lessons of interest above the dreams of 
mammon or the schemes of gain — speaking of holy themes, 
and kindling memories of the scenes it has witnessed 
within its walls, of humble penitence and lofty praise. 
There it stood more significant than the Pharos of the 
Egyptian coast, more thrilling than monuments of Revo- 
lutionary valor, with a moral grandeur in its unassuming 
simplicity that casts contempt on marble piles. Strike it 
from the scene and you have left nothing in the framed 
landscape but a cheerless background, a community with- 
out a temple, a people without an altar. 

But more essential than public, is household piety, and 
the first is vain without the last. Prayerless families 



THE TENT AND THE ALTAR 247 

may form an intelligent, but not a devout assembly, and 
we know full well, that sometimes when the arm of per- 
secution has scattered the flock, religion has withdrawn 
to the quiet retreats of the fireside, and a lofty devotion 
has breathed its prayer or sent up the incense of its praise 
from humblest homes. Piety has found a shelter in 
scenes too obscure to invite the notice of persecuting 
malice, and in forest glooms, or even the caves of the 
earth, the tent, and the altar, have still been conjoined. 
We love to think how the exiled pilgrims, who laid the 
foundations of empire on these western shores, with a 
pious impulse wiser than the statesman's sagacity, scarcely 
waited to frame their own rude cabins to shelter them 
from the blast, before they laid the foundations of the 
village church, so that every civil and social institution 
might be developed under the fostering influence of the 
fear of G-od. Oar sympathies go with them into the deep 
forest, where, as they mark the trees that will serve to 
rear their own dwelling, they spare with careful foresight 
those that can be framed for the courts of the Lord's 
house. And when the humble fabric rises, and with it 
the gratitude of those that rear it, and each rude cabin 
nestles as it may beneath its shade, we think of the piety 
of the old Jewish patriarch, and of tent and altar insep- 
arably associated together ; but dearer to memory than 
all this is that scene of family devotion where young and 
old kneel together beneath the humble roof, to pay their 
common vows and breathe their common prayer. Here 
is the germ of the harvests of after centuries. Here are 
training influences that shape the destiny of generations, 
and make the household hallowed as the school for young 
immortals — the nursery of heaven. 

In this is wisdom. Let the tent and the altar go to- 



248 LIFE LE880N8. 

gether ; let them never be dissociated. For there is 
common acknowledgment of God due from each house- 
hold. The family bond unites individuals together by 
the strongest of all earthly ties. Its several members are 
associated together in the closest intimacy. They sleep 
beneath the same roof, meet at the same table, converse 
on the same subjects, are familiar with the same scenes. 
They exert upon one another a mutual influence, and 
breathe one common atmosphere of thought and feeling. 
Insensibly they acquire kindred tastes. They reflect 
each other's views. They adopt the same standards of 
judgment. The same books and papers fall under their 
eye, and the same friendships often draw them into the 
same circles. Their interests, moreover, are kindred, if 
not identical. The same events excite a common inter- 
est, or enkindle like emotions. In their hopes and fears 7 
their joys and griefs, their hearts beat with the same 
impulse, and the reverse or success of one affects them 
all. Daily intercourse strengthens bonds of association, 
draws them closer and makes them dearer to one another. 
The same blessings are largely poured into their common 
cup, the same calamity embitters their common lot. The 
reputation of one, to some extent, involves that of all, 
and the honor or disgrace of one is reflected back upon 
every other member. 

Looking up, then, as they do, to the same heavenly 
guardianship, dependent as they are upon the same 
Providence, fed by the same hand, sustained and spared 
by the same mercy, and cherishing the hope that all the 
changes of time that may yet separate them on earth, 
and all the events which may open for them widely sun- 
dered graves, shall not obstruct their blest reunion in 
heaven ; shall they not unite in a common acknowledg- 



THE TENT AND THE ALTAR. 



249 



ment of the same weakness and the same dependence, the 
same duty and the same need, the same God and the 
same Saviour ? Should there not be some token of unity 
in religious conviction, some manifestation of their kin- 
dred interest in the same divine truth ? Shall they meet 
at a common table, and not kneel at the same altar ? 
Shall they share in kindred earthly joys and hopes, only 
to be estranged from all sympathy in those of heaven ? 

But to be more specific, they have common needs, com- 
mon wants, common dangers. They are alike mortal, 
dependent, exposed, tempted, tried. Must not each, as 
well as all, say, "lama sinner : I have an evil heart of 
unbelief: I need the renewing grace and the guiding 
spirit of God ? Must not every one acknowledge the obli- 
gation to the same obedience, the claims of the same ho- 
liness, the necessity of a like preparation for meeting 
God ? Can one fall into danger and the others not suffer 
with him ? Can one indulge in sin, and the others escape 
the influence of his disobedience ? Example has there pre- 
eminently a contagious power. The same modes of error, 
like the same modes of speech, tone and language, are some- 
times to be found j and the correction for one is that for 
all. They must consequently look to the same Provi 
dence to guard them, the same wisdom to guide them, 
and the same mercy to blot out their sin ? Shall they 
not then adopt one confession ? Shall they not lean to- 
gether upon one arm ? Shall they not alike bow in peni- 
tence, shall they not send up the united petition for the 
same grace ? 

But they have, moreover, common favors and blessings 

from the same divine source, and these demand a united 

thanksgiving. As sickness carries distress, and death 

mourning, through a household, so the welfare of each is 

11* 



250 LIFE LES80N8. 

a common joy for which all are to be grateful. Life, 
health, strength, food, raiment, shelter, the social bles- 
sings of home, wisdom for all from the same Bible, grace 
from the same divine fountain, redemption from the one 
Redeemer ; do not these demand a common gratitude, and 
a common expression of that gratitude ? Shall all other 
emotions be shared and deepened by intimate associa- 
tion, and these of grateful love to the Great Giver fail to 
be thus cherished ? Who does not see the guilt of so 
marked an exception? Who does not feel the incon- 
sistency of such a course ? 

But they have, moreover, we will fondly believe, 
something common in their hopes. However varied in 
some respects their condition, they have not relinquished, 
they cannot relinquish, the cheering prospect of a com- 
mon home in heaven. They will cling through varied 
scenes to the sacred thought — that all earthly separations 
or wanderings shall not obstruct their final reunion in 
the same fold of the great and good Shepherd. Shall 
they not then unite in those acts of prayer and praise 
which seem at least to give some warrant for the hope ; 
which seem to offer an outward pledge of that common 
sympathy which alone can ever unite them in the har- 
mony of the redeemed in heaven ? What a very mock- 
ery of all reasonable hope that would be, which had not 
the basis of even a common recognition, a common ac- 
knowledgement ! 

But beyond all this, family religion as manifested at 
least by family worship, gives to the fireside a congenial 
charm. It sheds a sanctity over all the relations of 
family intercourse. It makes home, in a measure, what 
it should be, some feeble type at least of the hallowed 
home of the great family above. That common prayer, 



TEE TENT AND THE ALTAR. 25 1 

that common praise, are telegraphic lines, as it were, 
reaching from the hearthstone up to the throne before 
which angels bow. The earthly household becomes the 
type of the great household of faith. Earthly brother- 
hood is recognized as the type of that by which all shall 
say without one discordant tone, " Our Father which art 
in heaven." 

Family religion is the best safeguard also of the future 
welfare of the family. The scenes of coming years on 
which childhood is entering now, are full of danger. 
The tempter is there. Thousands have already fallen, 
and thousands more are exposed. Your child, the mem- 
bers of your family, with the swift flight of time, are 
hurrying forth to mingle in those scenes, to risk those 
hazards. You are to guard them by your counsel ; you 
are to arm them for the strife. And how shall they go 
forth ? With what preparation will you let them venture 
where so many have fallen ? Have you nothing to incul- 
cate but worldly prudence ? Have you no sword to put 
into their hand but that of mere intellectual training ? 
You may have wealth to bestow upon them, but that very 
wealth may prove a curse. You may train them to in- 
dustrious and moral habits, but these have often proved 
but a vain security for time, to say nothing of their utter 
incompetence for eternal issues. Is there not something 
more necessary ? And what is it ? Your own convic- 
tions anticipate me when I say that more than industry, 
intellectual training or wealth, must religious principle 
avail — that principle which has been nurtured at the 
family altar, and which has thenceforth been strengthened 
by every memory of early years. If you would disarm 
the power of temptation for them when they are called 
to meet it, let the yery aspect of the Satanic bribe be re- 



252 



LIFE LESSONS. 



buked by a reviving of those scenes where all knelt in 
prayer around the fireside, and the words of the sacred 
volume made the thought of sin terrible, and the glories 
of holiness attractive. Let them carry with them, ever 
hung conspicuous on the walls of memory, the picture of 
life's early experience, hallowed by associations of praise 
and worship. Let the scenes of home come back to them, 
never without that foremost feature of the family altar ; 
never to be conceived of except as associated with the 
high claims of religious duty. 

Surely the example of Abraham is one that commends 
itself to every parent. The tent and the altar should 
ever be conjoined. Every household should be the sanc- 
tuary of a hallowed affection, the earthly image of the 
family of heaven. Religion should be there, not in mere 
form, but in its living spirit ; not as a mere outward cere- 
monial, but as an inspiring principle. Let the busy world 
be what it may, this should be an Eden lighted up with 
the smile of God, blest with that peace which comes only 
from Him whose advent to earth kindled the rapt songs 
of angels. Here, at least, should be an ark floating securely 
over a sin- deluged world. Here youthful minds and 
hearts should find a nursery for heaven. Parental influ- 
ence and example should bear the aspect, not of a cold, 
formal propriety, but of a fervent, cheerful, living faith in 
God. With his earliest thoughts, the child should learn 
to know his Maker's goodness, should recognize with 
gratitude His care and providence. Here each opening 
mind should be led to unfold itself to the beams of 
heavenly love, and the earliest consciousness should be 
made familiar with the idea of duty to God. 

But how can this be, if the tent and the altar are dis- 
joined ? How can it be in the home where religion is a 



THE TENT AND TEE ALTAR. 



253 



stranger ? How can it be in the place where the voice 
of prayer and praise is never heard, and a sinful neglect 
of known duty only serves to commend irreligion. Ah ! 
there is a teaching in silence, a sermon in neglect ! But 
it preaches negatives. It says, " No love, no duty ; no 
obedience, no law ; no judgment, no heaven, no hell ; no 
Saviour, no God." And who would venture to give it a 
tongue for such utterance, a tongue to whisper in the 
ears of childhood the fond and fatal delusion. 



XXIX. 

LIFE'S TEARS AND HARVEST. 

"He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless 
come again, with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." — Ps. cxxvi. 6. 

THE world is full of contrasts, but contrasts often 
strangely linked together. Youth and age are 
strung on the thread of our common life. Seed-time and 
harvest are revolving spokes in a common wheel. You 
never see prosperity but there is a glimpse of adversity 
in the background. The halls of the reveler are strangely 
kindred to the cold garret where wretchedness lies on 
its bed of straw. It is hard work to move graveyards 
out of sight of mammon's busiest walks. The light 
frivolities or sinful indulgence of youth are the downward 
steps of a staircase that lands us among rags, and sighs, 
and blighted prospects. The sparkle of the wine-cup de- 
generates into that phosphorescence of moral death that 
gleams from the decanters of the grogshop. 

And so, also, the true success of life stands out from a 
background of self-denying toil, of struggle, and hardship, 
and manly endurance. The rich harvest-field, waving in 
its beauty to the breath of the winds, speaks of labor 
and culture, and the hard-won victory over a stubborn 
soil. The bow of hope that spans the close of life's pil- 
grimage is hung on clouds of care and trial, if not of sore 
calamity. 

254 



LIFE'S TEARS AND HARVEST. 255 

" The path of sorrow, and that path alone, 
Leads to the world where sorrow is unknown. 
No traveler ever reached that blest abode, 
Who found not thorns and briars in his road." 

Scripture expresses the thought in words not less beau- 
tiful : " He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing pre- 
cious seed, shall doubtless return again with rejoicing, 
bringing his sheaves with him." 

Final success — the joy of life's ripe harvest — is the 
goal of our hopes. No wise or thoughtful man will live 
merely for to-day. The pilgrim who seeks a home is not 
content to linger and loiter for the mere flowers beside 
his way. The sower looks onward to fields white and 
ready for the sickle. Wisdom has regard to the grand 
issue. The triumph or the pleasure of to-day is transi- 
tory. We want a hope that does not sink with the set- 
ting sun. The true success of life is that which does 
not fail the evening of our days, and leave them to blight 
or barrenness. We want that shout of " harvest home/' 
that will not die into silence with the failing breath, but 
makes the passage of the grave a whispering-gallery where 
heaven and earth talk together. 

Many mistake in their ideal of what constitutes the 
true success of life. That man who comes back from 
the field of probation's toil, rejoicing and bringing his 
sheaves with him — he who is heir to God's " well done " 
— is not the world-applauded hero, not the man who has 
piled up the largest heap of wealth, not the man that 
has drawn most notice, but he who in proportion to his 
talents can show the most permanent good done ; he 
who, though he has but few sheaves, has those of wheat 
and not tares, whose life-work has built not " hay, wood 
and stubble," but "silver, gold, precious stones." He 



256 LIFE LESSONS. 

comes back rejoicing — with that joy that flows from 
knowing that his work is done, and has not been alto- 
gether vain — that he has sheaves for heaven's garner, 
grown of precious seed, and that into the presence of the 
great householder he can go and say humbly, but hopefully, 
" Thy talents have gained five talents more." Here is 
true success ; not that hailed by the acclaim of applauding 
thousands, not that which was won by a favoring turn 
of fortune's wheel, not that of pomp and triumphant 
parade, but that of an approving conscience, and the 
smile of Heaven ; that of works that will outlive their 
author, works that will follow him. 

It is not without significance that a man is presented 
before us as going forth weeping, bearing precious seed. 
By this we are taught that he must have a tearful anxi- 
ety, such a deep sense of the greatness and arduousness 
of his task as will make him weep before God, and he 
must sow the right seed, direct his energies in that chan- 
nel which will produce the best as well as the largest 
harvest. 

No man ever, as a general thing, accomplishes much 
without a deep, if not burdening sense of what he under- 
takes. It is so in temporal things. It is so in spiritual. 
The great works of life are no holiday by-plays. A man 
must not go to his work-shop or counting-room toying or 
trifling. He that would carry out his business projects 
to a successful issue, must make care and toil his" part- 
ners. He must struggle with the tide of events, and 
turn it into the channel of his designs. He must not 
shrink from vigilance and anxiety. He must be prepared 
to battle long and well with adversity. And so it is with 
the pursuit of spiritual good, the mastery of self, the 



LIFE'S TEAMS AND RAH VEST. 257 

victory over sin, the rebuke of surrounding wickedness, 
the culture of grace in one's own and others' hearts. 
The greatness of the task must be felt, felt even to 
tears, felt to the measure of a tearful prayerfulness. 

And the true work of a Christian's life aiming at final 
success, is great enough to warrant this. It is a great 
battle. It is a struggle to absorb the soul's entire ener- 
gies. To win heavenfto make our calling and election 
sure, to keep the light of holy example bright amid sur- 
rounding darkness, to carry the standard of truth right 
through the bustling crowds of worldliness — this is no 
easy task. It demands that anxiety which will press the 
energies of the whole man out into action. To do our 
duty by ourselves — to master sin within and temptation 
without — to do our duty by others and bring them as 
far as we may to the Saviour, it burdened the soul of 
an Apostle ; it might task the powers of an angel. It 
calls for an anxiety that will flow forth in prayer and 
tears, tears that the soul weeps and not the eye, tears 
that God sees and not man. 

And another element of success is that we go forth 
bearing precious seed. There is care and anxiety enough 
in the world if only directed into the right channel ; 
there is seed enough sown if it was only of the right 
kind. But the tares and weeds outnumber the wheat. 
The botany of the moral is as rich as that of the natural 
world. The thorns and thistles, the perplexities and 
cares that men sow for their harvests are innumerable. 
How much of the seed laboriously sown by men is worth- 
less, or worse. It grows up to pain, and guilt, and 
anguish, and accusing memories. Men sow to the wind 
to reap the whirlwind. All the sorrows and calamities 
of life almost — its disappointments, and disgusts, and de- 



258 LIFE LESSONS. 

spair — come from the seed sown. Stupidity or reckless- 
ness never stops to ask what it is, whether precious or 
worthless. The man who casts the seed of wasted years, 
of selfish or worldly anxieties, into the soil he cultivates, 
knows not what he does, and, when time shows him his 
mistake, he sees too late that his own hands planted it. 
Some men sow seeds of poison to embitter all their after 
years ; some scatter seeds that spring up to mere useless 
shrubs 1 some sow the seed of their vices, that multiply 
and spread their curse like the Canada thistle, over- 
running the farmer's fields. Precious seed there is, but 
it comes from God's patent-office ; it is seed that springs 
up into a life of piety, devotion, and usefulness ; it is the 
seed of holy aims and strivings ; the seed of charity, in- 
tegrity, and self-denial. It is such seed as Christ sowed 
in the Sermon on the Mount, or by the well of Samaria, 
or among the famished thousands of the desert ; such as 
Paul scattered broadcast over the Roman empire ; such 
as time sifts out of the lives of good men in faithful duties 
done, and holy examples set, and kindly words uttered ; 
such as the faithful parent drops into the soil of the 
young heart springing up to all generous, and humane, 
and heavenward strivings ; such as falls lightly as the 
snowflake about the hearthstone where the home-group 
kneel to pray ; such as the Sabbath teacher drops into 
young and tender hearts, that it may grow with their 
growth and strengthen with their strength ; such is the 
seed precious beyond all price, the harvest of which 
shall be rich in more than golden sheaves. As he that 
turns a desert to a garden does a more useful work than 
he that built the pyramids, so he that turns one soul to 
righteousness, or keeps his own from the pollutions of the 
world, does a work that will invoke blessings on its 



LIFE'S TEARS AND HARVEST. 



259 



author when lizards crawl over the monuments of nobles 
and of kings. The seed he plants is that of the spread- 
ing banyan-tree of grace, that will live on and still extend 
when the frosts of time shall have withered the weeds 
and sedges that bloomed and thrived, as human wealth 
or greatness, for a summer's day. A man may toil as 
hard to plant thorns as grapes. He may spend as much 
labor in rearing shrub oaks as cedars of Lebanon ; and 
so a man may sow to the flesh and of the flesh reap 
corruption, and it may cost him as much care and effort 
as if he sowed to the Spirit, and of the Spirit reaped life 
everlasting. 

The wise farmer is careful in the seed he selects. It 
costs no more to plant the good than the bad. A man 
may sweat and tire as much in sowing chaff and sawdust 
as in sowing wheat ; and when we look at the field of 
the world, we seem to see men who, oblivious of the na- 
ture and bearing of their efforts, are spending, in the 
mere pursuit of personal and selfish objects, those ener- 
gies which, wisely directed, might lay up a treasure for 
them in heaven. No matter how hard they toil, the 
more miserable will be their failure if they have not the 
precious seed ; no matter how abundant their returns, 
if they be but weeds, and straw, and stubble ; no matter 
what shrewdness and skill they may display in accumu- 
lating a bulky crop, if, on God's threshing-floor, not a grain 
of wheat can be winnowed out. You might go through the 
community and sum up the attainments of thousands of 
busy lives, and when you subject them to the only real 
test of what they have accomplished for God and man, 
they are> with all their imposing array and splendor, no 
better than great Babylon, that golden head of the king- 
doms, when " weighed in the balance and found want- 



2 6o LIFE LESSONS. 

ing." An air-bubble may be as brilliant and more bulky 
than a jewel, but it dissolves at a touch ; and so death 
touches the splendid fortune, or the honored reputation, 
and it breaks, with all its glitter, and disappears forever ; 
while he that, at the cost of all he had, has sought the 
goodly pearl, may have it shining forever in the crown of 
his rejoicing. 

Let there be, then, that attention to the seed you sow 
which the importance of the case demands. That was 
an ignoble boast of the ancient artist, " I paint for eter- 
nity," by the side of him who, conscious of aspiring to a 
harvest for the garner of heaven, can say, " I sow for 
eternity." Not one grain of his precious seed is, or ever 
can be, lost. It may sleep long beneath the cold clod, 
and the wintry storms may seem to weave a snowy 
shroud for its final burial, but its hidden life will out- 
burst its sepulchre with the returning spring-time, and 
then it will be seen, that, while the schemes of statesman- 
ship were brushed by time like the spider's webs, and 
colossal fortunes vanished like a dream, and a fame that 
the world echoed died in whispers, the kindly counsel, 
the holy example, the self-denying charity, the lowly be- 
neficence of the good man were springing up to a harvest 
over which the jubilee of angels should break enrap- 
tured. 

" He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious 
seed, shall doubtless return again rejoicing, bringing his 
sheaves with him." Doubtless ! You may rely upon it. 
It is the sure result of His ordinance who has declared 
that seed-time and harvest shall not fail. It may some- 
times seem to be otherwise. There are those who toil 
on prayerfully and tearfully to life's close, and see little 
fruit of their efforts ; but many times their works follow 



LIFE'S TEARS AND HARVEST. 2 6i 

tliem. When their dust has been given to the grave, 
and men have read their name only on their monument, 
some lingering memory that seemed dry and dead has 
bloomed afresh, and the very words uttered in the weak- 
ness of their dying breath have been the down that 
floated a seed for eternity to a spot where it found a con- 
genial soil, and rooted and grew up to a noble life, or to 
generous deeds. Then at last, perhaps, it was remem- 
bered, that long agoin humble, lowly striving, some child 
of God had prepared the field and sowed the seed for 
the harvest that gladdens the heart of angel reapers ; 
that, in the calm assurance of faith, hoping against hope, 
and struggling with discouragement, a godly zeal or 
heavenly endurance laid the foundation for all these 
results. 

Look yonder at that little group on the Grecian shores 
of ancient Miletus, and see how at the words of that 
saintly man, who stands among them, the tears are start- 
ing from many an eye ; and, at last, about to bid them 
farewell, he kneels down and prays with them all. See, 
how with sore weeping, they fall upon his neck, and kiss 
him, sorrowing that they shall behold his face no more. It 
is the Apostle Paul and the elders of the Church at 
Ephesus, but that Apostle goes forth weeping, bearing 
precious seed, the seed of the Word of God, and if you 
wait a few years more, you shall hear a voice of triumph 
issuing from his Roman prison : " I have fought the good 
fight, I have kept the faith, and henceforth there is laid 
up for me a crown of life." Ah ! there is the joy of the 
laborer returning from the harvest-field, bringing his 
sheaves with him. 

Gaze yonder on the northern coast of the African con- 
tinent, and look at that desolate home of a widowed 



262 LIFE LESSONS. 

mother and her only son. She is a Christian woman, and 
long and well has she toiled and prayed that the heart 
of her child might be renewed and sanctified. But the 
years pass on, and learning, and philosophy, and hu- 
man speculations, and passionate indulgence, possess his 
thoughts, and every day carries him further from the 
path of Christian hope. Tears flow in secret, and many 
a heart-coined prayer goes up for his recovery, but there 
is no change. The widowed mother goes sadly to her 
pastor, and opens to him her burdens and her griefs, but 
in a faith built upon the assurance that he that sows in 
tears shall reap in joy, he bids h$r still hope that grace 
will not let the child of faith and prayer be wholly lost. 
A few years pass on, and you see that wayward, paganized, 
ambitious youth, the venerable Bishop of the ancient 
Church, and the admiring reverence of after centuries 
knows him as St. Augustine. She that went forth and 
wept, bearing precious seed may come again rejoicing in 
the abundant harvest of her prayer and toil. 

There, again, is the faithful Sabbath-school teacher. 
Burdensome anxiety for the welfare of souls committed 
to his care, makes him feel the arduousness of the task 
he has undertaken. To gain their attention, to imbue 
their minds with heavenly truth, to lead them to the 
Lamb of God ; all this is a work to try the faith, and ex- 
cite apprehension. But with a tearful faith in God the 
seed is sown. No promise of a harvest, perhaps, appears. 
The pupils are scattered abroad over the wide world, 
and no track of them can be kept. But afar away, on 
shipboard, in the silent watch on deck, or in the solitudes 
of the great prairies, or in some strange and distant city, 
the memory of those Sabbaths comes back, and the wan- 
dering scholar thinks how like the prodigal he is, and 



LIFE'S TEARS AND HARVEST. 263 

God's spirit carries the conviction home, and so, afar off 
in time and place, he is brought near to God, and, at 
length, it may be that he meets that teacher, and glad- 
dens his heart with the story of God's gracious dealings, 
till he who went forth weeping bearing precious seed 
feels that he can return rejoicing bringing his sheaves 
with him. 

Take another illustration. Here is a poor, unfortunate 
child of want and sorrow. Pain, and grief, and afflic- 
tion have been his lot. He has suffered long and much, 
sometimes from human coldness and harshness ; some- 
times from disease, or the anguish of bereavement. But, 
with all this, he has hope in God. Tears indeed are his 
meat and drink, but the fear of sinning against that great 
and good Being, who has left him so many mercies still 
— fear lest he betray complaining or ingratitude, is his 
greatest anxiety. There he lies, perhaps almost helpless, 
on his straw-bed in a garret, but gathering up from 
his precious Bible sweet words of counsel and of prom- 
ise, and dropping them one by one into his memory, till 
they root there deep and strong, and nothing can tear 
them up. 

He seems to me like the sower going forth weeping, 
bearing precious seed, only his own heart is the field, 
and God's word and God's rich grace are the precious 
seed ; but I know that the harvest will come, ah ! it has 
come already, in that calm submission, that cheerful faith, 
that heavenly hope, that make the sufferer's bed preach 
to the world the blessedness of a believer's portion. 

Such are some of the abundant lessons which God sets 
before us to impress upon us the truth of his word. The 
world is full of them. He that would come back from 
life's harvest-field rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with 



264 LIFE LE880N8. 

him, must be prepared to go forth weeping bearing 
precious seed. It is not by shunning self-denial and du- 
ties' hardships, that the true goal of life can be won. 
The path of ease is not that of heavenly, any more than 
earthly attainment. 

Look where you will over this busy earth, and you find 
no blessing of probation that has not cost effort or self- 
denial. The richest harvests cost laborious culture. 
Even the prizes of fame and ambition have been won by 
persevering toil. The laborer's gains are moist with 
sweat, and the soldier's laurels drip with blood. The 
heroes of faith have endured hardness ; have sustained 
the great " fight of affliction." They have passed through 
the furnace. Some of them have run their earthly race 
to a fiery goal. All that will be Christ's disciples must 
be cross-bearers. They must be prepared to tread in 
their Master's steps. They must welcome " the narrow 
way." They must " sow in tears." 

I would not advocate a sad and tearful countenance. 
I would not clothe religion in black, or robe it in mourn- 
ing habiliments. But I know that life and life's tasks 
are a serious and solemn thing. I know that sin has 
made the world a vale of tears, and no Eden can come 
out of it till sin, by stern conflict, is mastered and sub- 
dued. He that would be a victor must first act the 
soldier's part. By prayer, and toil, and self-mastery — 
leaning ever on the staff of Jehovah — we must climb to 
the height from which we fell. 

" Whoever thinks, must see that man was made 
To face the storm, not languish in the shade. 
Action 's his sphere, and for that sphere designed, 
Eternal pleasures open on the mind." 



XXX. 

WALKING IN THE TRUTH. 

"I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." 

3 John 4. 

t& r I ^0 walk in truth I" What an expressive phrase ! 
JL How full of meaning ! 

There are some men who walk in falsehood. You 
might write their biography in a tomb-stone epitaph, that 
might almost make the marble blush — " a thirty, forty, 
fifty, seventy years' lie." It is false to God, false to con- 
science, false to the reality of things, false to the eternal 
laws of duty and righteousness. It starts with a false 
principle, and ends in false results. 

Such is the life of the hypocrite, the man who seems 
what he is not ; who makes his speech and manner and 
professions a mask to deceive ; who murders truth and 
integrity, and yet wears the robes of the murdered. In 
his case, the atmosphere in which he lives and breathes is 
falsehood. 

So there are thousands whose life is unreal. They 
live in their own fancies. Their life is but a dream of 
fashion or pleasure. As they whirl by on their way to 
eternity, they are gay, thoughtless, heedless. They walk 
in a vain show. Their joys are hollow joys. Their 
troubles are fanciful. Their talk is empty bubbles, the 
froth of vanity. 

12 (265) 



266 LIFE LESSONS. 

There are others again who would scorn a lie, who 
would brand it with infamy, who are yet false to God. 
He is their sovereign, yet they do not obey him. He is 
their master, but they do not serve him. He is their 
Father, but they do not honor him. To his just claims, 
they say, how often, like the young man in the parable, 
" I go, sir," and go not. They have been entrusted sol- 
emnly with talents, but they are false to their trust. 
They have means of influence and, perhaps, wealth, but 
they are false in their use. 

And thus they are false to themselves. They betray 
their own souls. With these in their keeping, they falsely 
surrender them to sin and Satan. Instead of guarding 
them with a truthful fidelity, they leave them, with door 
ajar, for Satan to enter. 

It is not strange then that they should be false to their 
convictions. They know what is good, yet do it not. 
They feel that they should be pious, yet they linger in 
their sins. They hear a voice within, with Sinai author- 
ity, calling them to repent, but they are false to its sum- 
mons. They see the flag of duty waving over them, but 
they will not march under the banner. They are false 
to the flag of conscience. 

In common with others, they are false to the eternal 
laws of righteousness. These are binding on us all. 
From the seraph before the throne, to the felon in his 
cell, there is not a moral agent in the universe of God, 
exempt from their obligation, and there is not one who 
does not at times acknowledge it. But how many break 
through them, are disloyal to them, put duty under 
bonds to pleasure, insult the awful majesty of truth, do 
despite to the authority which legislates for eternity and 
for the universe. 



WALKING IK THE TRUTH. 267 

Doubtless many of these would scorn a downright lie. 
They have been educated to despise it. They discern in 
it something intrinsically mean and odious. But their 
idea of it is that it must be articulated in words, or com- 
pacted in cheats and frauds. They forget that the very 
spirit of it is a Proteus, that like the rain-drop it may be 
compacted in ice or expanded in vapor, like the pesti- 
lence it may walk in darkness, as well as destroy at noon- 
day. They forget that the very essence of all sin is false- 
hood, a violation of truth, or truthfulness, to God, man, 
or the soul itself. 

Thus, we see that the comprehensive summary of a 
noble and upright life is " to walk in truth." There is 
nothing grander, purer, higher. And there is nothing so 
exactly descriptive of the complete and perfect character. 
To walk in truth is not only to be what we seem ; not 
only to scorn masks ; not only to shun the hollowness of 
all that the dying man pronounces unreal ; not only to 
withdraw from the path hung about with shows and 
pageants and shadows, but to walk as God's child, to live 
as the heir of heaven, to be true at once to truth, to con- 
science, and to God. 

No doubt all this was included in the idea of the 
Apostle. It was unquestionably his summary of a Chris- 
tian life. His highest idea of the truth was, as Paul 
expresses it, " the truth as it is in Jesus." He had himself 
heard the master say, " I am the way, the truth, and the 
life," To him the highest truth, the sum of all truth, the 
sum itself of truth, of which all science and philosophy 
were but darkling rays, was Christ the Lamb of God 
that taketh away the sin of the world. To accept hi m 
as the great teacher, the great example, the great atoning 
sacrifice ; to be found in him, not having his own right- 



268 LIFE LESSONS. 

eousness ; to be able to say, " for ine to live is Christ," 
" I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me," and to walk 
in his steps, the steps of incarnate truth itself — this, be- 
yond question, was what the Apostle meant by his ex- 
pressive phrase, walking in truth. 

And who doubts that the man who is true to God, ac- 
cording to the Bible standard, true to Christ as a servant 
and disciple, will be true in all things else ? You can 
trust him. He lives under the all-seeing eye. He dwells 
in the all-pervading presence. He yields unswerving 
allegiance to the God of all truth. You want no spies 
to watch him, no human statutes to bind him, no sureties 
to make good his word. Potosi or California coined into 
gold could not bribe him. The powers of earth and hell 
could not shake his integrity. 

Nay, the highest standard of Christian character and 
virtuous attainment is presented in this walking in truth. 
I could not ask of any man, of any Christian, any thing 
more than to walk in the truth of his convictions and 
professions. Let him hold these fast, and he will be a 
perfect man. He will not say one thing and do another. 
He will not profess to follow Christ and yet forsake him. 
He will not assume to be a child of God, and yet by 
worldliness, selfishness, and the love of vanity, covet the 
adoption of the Devil. He will be ever at the post of 
duty. He will ever enjoy that blessed music of heaven 
which flows from the harmony between conscience and 
act, the disposition and its allotted task. He will exem- 
plify his religion in word and deed. He will tolerate no 
self-delusion ; he will abide under no pretense. 

To see such a man as this, is a cheering, a noble sight. 
It is the sublimest spectacle beneath the stars. It does 
one's heart good, it makes it glad, to look at it. The 



WALKING IZT THE TRUTH. 269 

upheaved granite, pushing its mountain peaks up into 
the clouds, where the lightnings play, is grand. The 
broad landscape, where flowers bloom and trees wave on 
the background of silver lakes or azure skies, is beauti- 
ful ; but grander than the mountain and fairer than the 
landscape, is the true life, lifting itself heavenward, but 
blooming like the flower by the lowliest home. . 

If to see it is so cheering — to see it afar off, in a 
stranger that we never knew before — what must it be to 
hear of it in those we love, and whom we have ourselves 
taught ! those for whom we have prayed much and ear- 
nestly, whom we have met by the fireside, in whose be- 
half we have felt the anxiety too deep for words ! Their 
welfare is like our own. It is a part of it. The blow 
that smites them strikes through them to us. But to 
hear, to be assured that they walk in truth, is to hear the 
best news — that which our fervent affection most desires, 
that which crowns our fondest anticipations. 

How strange, how mysterious is that mutual bond of 
sympathy and affection which binds us all one to an- 
other! It counteracts selfishness. It keeps us from 
scattering each like a hermit to his solitary cell. We 
smile at other's joy, we weep at other's woe. See the 
parent's heart, stretching the tendrils of affection far over 
sea and land to clasp the absent child in its embrace. 
See the mutual attachment of teacher and pupil, of pas- 
tor and people, of the missionary and his converts ! And 
what is it that this affection desires the most, when it is 
pure and intelligent ? When life is at stake, when the 
enfeebled frame is sinking under disease, how poor is 
dress, or show, or beauty, or honor ! And when the 
purity of the soul, its spiritual life, is exposed to hazard, 
how vain is the pomp of its ruin, its harvests of grain, its 



270 LIFE LESSONS. 

gleanings of gold ! We shudder at that monstrous dis- 
tortion of feeling which would have a child rich though 
mean, great in place or rank, if dwarfed in principle. 
We have no words for the folly of the parent that makes 
a doll of a child, bedizzening it with silks, and ribbons, 
and jewels, only to nurse its pride and make it the sport 
of its own precocious passions of envy and vanity. It is 
like burning a precious diamond for the sake of its tran- 
sient blaze. It is reducing that which might be planted 
as a cedar in the courts of the Lord's house, into a 
charred firebrand, and doing it under the perverted 
name of affection. 

But take away the scales from the blinded eye. Recog- 
nize in that object of love a young immortal. See in it 
here on earth one exposed to temptations that may rend 
it like demons, and fling it dehumanized into the gutter 
or the dark pools of vice ; one that is not safe for a mo- 
ment without the safeguards of virtue ; one that only in 
the strength of truth, purity and piety is fit to fight the 
battle of life and come off conqueror, and then, if you 
love it, how every thing else shrinks into insignificance 
by the side of that life of duty and religion in which the 
soul grows ripe for the benedictions of men on earth and 
the blessedness of God in heaven ! You want to see it 
walking in wisdom's ways. You ask, with tears per- 
haps, that God would keep it from the evil, from vice, 
from falsehood, from being untrue to itself or to him. 
And you are not contented, your anxiety does not find 
relief, till you beseech for it the new heart that loves 
God, the new life that springs from his truth. 

And you are right here. Better that your child should 
be a beggar in the streets than that it should grow up to 
falsehood and false ways. Better that it should be hated 



WALKING IN THE TRUTH. 271 

of men than unloved of God. But it cannot be loved of 
Him, unless it is true, unless it walks in truth, unless it 
is strong in truth, unless the truth has made it penitent, 
humble, contrite, faithful, consecrated to God. There 
are times even in this world when the cable of good hab- 
its under the stress of temptation's storm would yield, if 
the iron thread of Christian principle were not inter- 
twined with it, and we know, that in the final struggle, 
he is weak, no matter of how strong resolve, or tireless 
energy, who is not strong in the Lord. 

How then can yours be the joy which the Apostle 
felt ? The joy, greater than which he declared he could 
not feel ? How, as you gaze over your household, or 
your circle of friends, or on the forms of those you know 
and love, can you find for yourself a happiness even on 
earth like that of the angels in heaven over the repent- 
ing sinner ? Surely, it is only by doing what you can to 
lead them to the fountains of eternal life, to the fear of 
God, to the feet of Jesus. It is only by striving so to 
draw and guide them that they shall be led to him who 
is the way, the truth, and the life — shall indeed, in a 
single word, walk in truth. 

But to this end you must walk in truth yourself. If 
you point to heaven, you must lead the way. Kay, if 
you hesitate, I can conceive the very piety of your child 
a stinging reproof, an occasion of reproach, an element 
to embitter your anguish. To rejoice in his conversion, 
you need to be converted yourself. Oh ! that every pa- 
rent could say, " I have no greater joy than to heai; that 
my children walk in truth, and this joy is mine." 



XXXI. 

CHARACTER. 

" The righteous is an everlasting foundation." — Prov. x. 25. 

HAVE you ever passed along the shores of the sea 
where the chafing waves had for centuries been 
encroaching on the land, washing the sand away, but 
leaving here and there a rocky ledge lifting its crest 
in proud defiance ? What seemed solid earth vanishes 
away, undermined and disintegrated piecemeal, while 
what had hitherto been buried out of sight and had 
passed unnoticed, comes out to view, and is prepared to 
challenge all the mad force of the ocean lashed into 
rage. 

On these shores of time, where the waves of centuries 
undermine and sweep away the greatest works of art, 
may we not feel that we have a parable before us ? The 
sands around us are drifting away ; the structures on 
which we expend our art are crumbling ; empires are 
disintegrated : fortunes are whelmed in the abyss ; the 
iron frame yields at last. Marks of decay are traced on 
all that we behold ; and yet time and violence, wind and 
wave, leave to every man that which we denominate 
his character. With each passing year it comes out 
more clear and distinct and unchanging, until at last 
when wealth, and honors, and vigor have yielded like 

(272) 



CHARACTER. 



273 



sands to the all-devouring sea, it stands alone, like the 
monumental pillar of probation, lifting its head above 
the tide and wave. 

The results of life are various, but the most permanent 
of them all is character. Sometimes it is the only thing 
that a man has left him after the discipline of probation. 
Sometimes misfortune sweeps away all his gains, and 
calamity leaves him friendless, and he stands alone with 
only his character, like a pillar solitary amid the ruins 
of a great city, surviving the wreck of all things be- 
side. 

They may disappear, but character abides. Once, 
indeed, it was pliable, almost like wax to the seal ; a 
breath could cover it, like a window-pane in winter, with 
pictured frost-work, or tarnish it, like the polished steel, 
and disfigure it by unsightly rust. A mere word will 
sometimes sink into it, falling as lightly, perhaps, as a 
raindrop on the primeval sands that ages have changed 
to solid strata, and leave an impression that future ages 
will never erase. A fleeting opinion, carelessly uttered, 
may mar and disfigure it forever. A passing incident, a 
look of reproof, a kindly tone, a memory of goodness, an 
example of piety, may impress some feature that will out- 
live the crumbling granite. The very dust and straws 
of time may be incorporated into it ; the collisions of 
youthful passions and interests may impress upon it last- 
ing distortion. Sometimes you may almost pour it liquid 
into the mould of a stronger will. But when it has taken 
shape, when time has hardened it in the mould, or fossil- 
ized the impression, it defies all the rasps and files of 
discipline, and blunts the hardened chisel, and sets at 
naught the force of fire and hammer. 

What is there that falls more gently and lightly than 
12* 



274 LIFE LESSONS. 

the snow-flake ? A breath will melt it, and you cannot 
feel its feathery stroke as it drops lingeringly from the 
clouds ; it sinks noiselessly and unnoticed, and is lost to 
view in the fleecy mass with which it mingles. And yet 
with time and pressure it hardens, and helps to form the 
giant iceberg which, launched from the frozen coasts of 
the North, floats downward toward the pole, towering 
above the tallest mast and crushing the oak-ribbed ves- 
sels that are dashed against it like egg-shells. 

Is it not so with character ? How evanescent is the 
passing emotion, the fleeting thought ! No human eye 
notes it, no human ear hears its echo. You cannot grasp 
it, or define it, or weigh it in the scales. It is born of 
an incident or a breath, and it vanishes like a vapor. 
The microscope cannot detect it, and history can rarely 
record it. It hangs out no flag, it blows no trumpet. 
It seems to flit by like a drifting shadow. Its step is as 
noiseless as Time's own ; and yet, as it sinks into its place 
in the soul, it is incorporated with other thoughts or 
emotions more or less like itself, and the result is some- 
times that structure of character that will resist all out- 
ward impression of rain or sunshine, and will carry the 
breath of polar winters with it into regions that were 
strangers to its birth. The strokes that are aimed at it 
only rebound against him that strikes. The masses that 
are dashed at it are only crushed in the collision. It is 
the frost-bound, impassive iceberg of the soul. 

Thus, while fashioned, perhaps, like wax, it changes, 
as it were, to adamant. Long before it has seen three- 
score years and ten it becomes fixed, and rigid, and 
changeless. You cannot mould it by persuasion or im- 
press it by terror. The appeals of reason are lost upon 
it ; the hopes of blessedness cannot soften it ; the unveiled 



CHARACTER. 2?5 

realities of retribution leave it impassive. All the powers 
of the life to come fail often to change a single feature, 
and if there is yielding at last, it is through the appre- 
hension of final judgment or the power of sovereign 
grace. 

A man's character is the aggregate of all the dispo- 
sitions, tastes, purposes, and habits of his soul ; whatever 
helps to constitute his moral identity. This, slowly made 
up, it may be, changing imperceptibly, perhaps, through 
years, is finally the least yielding of all things. At first 
it may be almost as shifting as the folds of the morning's 
mist. You cannot tell, amid the vicissitudes of childish 
years, what form it will finally assume ; and yet at last 
it looms up before you, outlined as clear and definite as that 
silver-edged border of the thunder-head, pencilled on 
the distant sky, which you can carry with you in memory 
through years to come. You cannot tell, perhaps, how it 
was formed, what silent, invisible influences moulded it, 
or from what source its elements were derived. Just as 
the morning's sun will drink up by its millions of beams 
millions of dew-drops, gathering them from lake and clod, 
from forest leaf and mossy bed, from steaming rotten- 
ness and fragrant flower, so from countless sources are 
drawn the elements of our moral life, from the examples 
we witness, the opinions we hear, the scenes through 
which we pass, the principles set before us or adopted 
by ourselves, the plans we form, the books we read, the 
pleasures we seek, the very objects of nature, of art, of 
providence or grace, that pass before our eyes. 

But when these have yielded what they have to bestow, 
the liquid gift crystallizes, like the jewels and diamonds 
of what we might almost call the bleeding granite ; dia- 
monds which become so hardened and unyielding, that 



276 LIFE LESSONS, 

the blow that would make any impression would suffice 
to crush them to atoms. The character becomes less and 
less pliable, and ere the ordinary period of life is past, 
we feel that the age of a Methusaleh filled with adverse 
and counteracting influences, would be powerless to 
change it. If graceless then, it is graceless forever. If 
not yet moulded, it is thenceforth forever rough and rude, 
rugged and harsh, stern and forbidding. Mountains may 
be levelled, ocean cliffs may be worn away by the tides, 
the pyramids may crumble, but the character is still the 
same. The tides of passion only plow that channel 
deeper which is already worn, and habit only entrenches 
itself more strongly between the cliff-bound barriers that 
it has formed itself. 

If any importance then attaches to character, the in- 
fluences by which it may be rightly shaped should be 
carefully studied, and the period during which it may be 
moulded should be accounted the golden moment. 

But character is important — unspeakably important. 
It is character which gives all its worth and significance 
to human existence ; without it, man is no better than the 
brute — no better than a graven image. He sinks to a 
level with the beast he drives, or the acres he ploughs. 
The end of existence and of probation is to form charac- 
ter — character that will glorify God. Character is the 
one indisputable and abiding result of our earthly trial. 
Every thing else is subsidiary to this. For it, the immense 
mechanism of time is set in motion, the world is framed, 
social order is established, laws are ordained and tests 
applied. Without it the globe with its furniture would be 
like a plowed field unsown — a house built, but never 
occupied. What is the mere culture of acres, the build- 
ing of cities, the minting and accumulation of coin, except 



CHARACTER. 277 

as these bear on character ? They have no more in- 
trinsic value or importance than a bee's construction of 
his cells, or a beaver's construction of his dam. Sum up 
all the other deeds and achievements of a human life, and 
if you omit character, what remains but stubble ? There 
is not a grain of wheat left. You have taken away the 
digits and added up only cyphers. 

What is that one work which is going forward cease- 
lessly throughout our whole career ; which activity may 
promote, but which indolence cannot arrest ; which begins 
with cradled infancy, and is closed only by the summons 
of the grave? It is not the work which builds up 
character ? And is not this our life work ? Are we not- 
all artists ? Is there not a striking parallel between the 
process of the sculptor, and that which is going forward 
in our own souls ? The first blows knock off the largest 
fragments of the marble, and determine the general 
contour of the statue. But not less important in some 
respects are the latest touches of the chisel, imperceptible 
in their effects to the careless observer, but yet giving 
finish to the work. So, to the very last, we are perfect- 
ing the work begun perhaps in childhood, and of all our 
achievements, this is to us the most important, as it is 
the most enduring. We may undertake enterprises that 
are futile as it respects dividends, but the character gains 
or loses by them. We may foolishly defeat our own suc- 
cess, or undo what we have done, but the double expe- 
rience is registered on the character. We can undertake 
nothing, which does not leave its most important resi- 
duum in our own hearts. Our character is for us the sum- 
mary of the results of probation. 

Character is the most valuable possession that a man 
can have on earth. It has an unspeakable worth even in 



278 LIFE LESSONS. 

the markets of the world, and in the daily intercourse of 
men. The loss of character is sometimes the loss of 
every thing. How poor and contemptible is he that has 
forfeited it! How he becomes the foot-ball of the 
world's scorn ! How he finds his symbol in the withered 
leaf, torn from its living stem, tossed by the whirlwind, 
and left to sink despised and neglected to oblivion ! 

Character has its value when tried by a business 
standard. An established reputation is itself a capital. 
It inspires confidence. It commands credit. It was by 
the force of character that "Washington in the dark days 
of war held together the armies of his country. It was 
by the force of character that the elder Pitt was able to 
evoke at a critical moment the energies of the nation, 
and make England's name terrible around the globe, on 
the heights of Abraham and in the jungles of India. It 
was the character of the missionary Schwartz that secured 
him confidence, and made him the peaceful mediator be- 
tween hostile armies. There are no victories or triumphs 
inscribed on the bloody record of war, that in moral 
grandeur can surpass or equal the bloodless achievements 
of character. It has proved itself mightier than num- 
bers, stronger than steel, richer than gold. The eloquence 
of Demosthenes is feeble by the side of the eloquence of 
character. Sometimes a whole nation is lifted out of des- 
pondency by the voice of one man in whom it has learned 
to confide. The ranks of a shattered army are marshalled 
anew into invincible battalions when the man whom they 
feel they can trust is put at their head. A single well- 
known signature will evoke millions of money in behalf 
of the enterprise it endorses. Such are the triumphs of ' 
character. 

It is the capital often of youthful enterprise ; it is the 



CHARACTER. 



279 



pledge of business success ; it secures friends ; it con- 
ciliates sympathy ; it commands respect. In the hour of 
need, in the trying emergency, it surrounds one with those 
who are disposed to lend a helping hand. He is not 
ostracised simply because he has been unfortunate ; he is 
not shunned as a pest ; he is not despised as a villain ; 
calumny may assault, but can only temporarily harm him, 
and when he rises again, as he is sure to do in the end 
those that hissed once will be ready to applaud. He can 
look upon his honest earnings without a blush. They do 
not rust and canker, and eat his flesh as it were fire. 
There is not a mean or dishonest coin among them ; but 
even if he were to lose them all, they are but trash to 
what still remains. His character will abide with him j 
it will be the foundation of new enterprise, the warrant 
of final though remote success. 

Character, again, is essential to happiness. There are 
some characters of which we cannot form the conception, 
without associating them with gloomy passions and 
troubled thoughts. They are built up of the elements of 
selfishness, greed, and crime. We look upon them as on 
some frowning, massive, windowless castle, with its damp, 
chill chambers and gloomy dungeons, where spiders 
weave their webs and lizards crawl. There is no cheer- 
ful sunlight in them, no ringing tones of sportive inno- 
cence, only the clank of chains and the echo of solitary 
footsteps. No place is there for happiness, no room for 
innocent delight or sweet content, and sometimes you 
may read on the clouded brow, as if sculptured over the 
grim portal of a tower, " Only the tyrant and his victims 
dwell within." 

There are elements of character that are like a disease 
in the bones, eating up the marrow of life. The impure, 



2 8o LIFE LESSONS. 

malicious, envious thought is a kind of demon within the 
soul. It goes about with us, haunts us, dwells in us, is 
part of our being. It denies and pollutes by its very 
presence. It frowns fiend-like upon us, from within, re- 
fusing to be dislodged. We are possessed as it were of 
the Evil Spirit. In such society happiness cannot dwell. 

And yet there are characters with which we associate 
naturally whatever is peaceful, and cheerful, and happy. 
Pure, lofty, generous, above the strife of low passions, 
full of meekness and gentleness ; we approach them as 
we would the shadow of Eden bowers. Their presence 
repels all that is unbecoming, morose, selfish, dark, or 
cruel. The light of conscious integrity and innocence 
streams through them, and they are fanned, as it were, 
by breezes laden with heaven's own fragrance. 

It is character and not place that decides the nature 
of the inward life. It is not the saloon that determines 
the features of the scene, but the guests that fill it. The 
landscape is nothing if "only man is vile." Locality, 
scenery, climate — these are of no avail. The thoughts 
and emotions which help to compose the character, and 
which are also the waves and foam that it tosses up, show 
us what it is ; and when these belong to a restless sea, 
ridged with the rolling tempest and the blasts of passion, 
we know that it must be a stranger to peace — -just as we 
feel assured when these sink to repose amid their own 
rippling music, heaven with all its stars will be mirrored 
on its quiet bosom. 

But character is important for the influence it exerts. 
It is held up before the world like the picture before the 
artist's eye, which he is to study. It exercises a constant 
though silent power over others wherever it is displayed, 
by the fireside, in the social scene, in the historic gallery, 



CHARACTER. 2 8i 

in the walks of public life. It commends the good, or it 
sanctions the evil. It points to heaven and leads the 
way, or it seduces to the paths of the destroyer. Noise- 
lessly but effectively it is ever at work. The hands may 
be folded to repose, the tongue may be silent, but the 
character speaks. It preaches to the present and to the 
absent. It admonishes, it inspires, it cheers, it guides ; or, 
on the other hand, it misleads and perverts. Who would 
not say, Let it be formed on the true model? Who 
would not insist, even in the obscurest sphere, on its 
being shaped so as to bless, and not to curse ? 

But character is also unspeakably important, as that 
which alone we can carry with us out of the world. 
Every thing else, fame and fortune, rank and station, must 
be left behind. But our character will be our own. If it 
is what it should be ; if it has been built up of holy aims, 
and sacred emotions, and the experience of charity and 
faith ; if it has been so shaped and featured that we may 
trace upon it the image of Jesus ; if it is beautiful with 
the image of penitence, and cheerful obedience, and sweet 
submission ; then it is our unspeakable treasure — our 
family likeness to the redeemed, the token of our relation- 
ship to the holy spirit before the throne. 

How solemnly, then, does it demand your care ! How 
does its importance throw every earthly or temporal 
interest into the shade ! Without it, kings are poor, and 
with it beggars are rich. It constitutes, by the grace 
of God, our title to the rank of the Nobility of Heaven. 



XXXII. 

SOCIAL DISCIPLINE. 

* Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification." 

Rom. xv. 2. 

THROUGHOUT the universe, there seems to be 
every where an antagonism of opposite forces, more 
or less harmonized, the proper balance of which is essen- 
tial to, and secures order. In the solar system, there is 
centrifugal as well as centripetal force, one impelling the 
planets onward in their orbits, and the other holding 
them within the sphere of the sun's attraction, so that the 
course they take is directly around the sun. The one 
balances the other. So it is throughout the starry sys- 
tem ; and thus the " music" or harmony of the spheres is 
preserved. 

So the temperature of the earth through the varied 
seasons is the resultant of heat from the sun's rays, and 
the cold of the polar or of the interplanetary regions. 
There is a perpetual conflict, and yet a perpetual though 
constantly varying equilibrium. The air we breathe is 
composed of well-balanced elements, either of which in 
excess would soon destroy life. Our own nature is con- 
stituted of reason and passion, of conscience and will, and 
either, in preponderating excess, would unfit us for our 
sphere of action on earth. Society itself is kept in equi- 
poise by a balance of what have been termed the radical 

(282) 



SOCIAL DISCIPLINE. 283 

and conservative elements, although these words are often 
grossly misapplied. 

But it is when we consider man in his relations to 
society, that we see this antagonism and equilibrium most 
strikingly exemplified. Civil order is the result of the 
free action of the individual, gently but firmly and per- 
sistently modified by a regard to the common good. Let 
that free action become license, let it fail to feel the cen- 
tral attraction of a common interest, and a man becomes 
like a lawless planet breaking loose from the system and 
carrying terror and ravage in its path. On the other 
hand, let that free action be absolutely suppressed by cen- 
tral authority, and the system becomes a tyrannic unity ; 
much as if the sun should draw all the planets to itself 
and consume them in its blaze. Then is realized what 
the despotic Louis XIV of France aspired to, when he 
said, " I am the State." 

Every thoughtful student of history knows that in the 
order of providence, where one of these tendencies is in 
excess, the other will be provoked into action and be dis- 
posed to rise and meet it. When individual license runs 
riot in crime and violence, the strong hand of a Nimrod, 
a Charlemagne, a Napoleon, will be called in to hold it 
in check. And so where royal prerogative, as in the 
case of the Stuarts of England, assumes to crush the lib- 
erties of the subject, and trample on individual rights, 
there will be an uprising and a practical protest against 
it, as there was in the great Rebellion under Cromwell. 
Just as the intense heat of summer brings the cooling 
clouds and the lightning, so the burning rays of oppres- 
sion will marshal the vapors of popular dissatisfaction, 
till they sweep in terrible and, perhaps, wasting energy 
over the parched plains. 



284 LIFE LESSONS. 

Thus, civil order is the balance of conflicting elements, 
and when either of these is in excess, the popular ten- 
dency will, perhaps slowly, settle back in favor of the 
other extreme. The conservative of one period is the 
reformer of another, and if the vessel of State careens too 
much, he that was on the extreme right will be very apt 
to go to the extreme left, while he who occupies the 
centre will be more apt to sit still. 

In a perfect state of society there would be no careen- 
ing. Individual freedom or will and the attraction of 
the common good would be in equipoise. And this result 
is the high aim of the broadest and most sagacious states- 
manship. The individual is to be so trained that he shall 
voluntarily and intelligently keep the path of order, mov- 
ing like the planet in its prescribed orbit. He is to be 
free within a limited sphere, and his own will and intelli- 
gence are to respect these limits — the limits set by a proper 
regard to the supreme authority and the highest good. 

But this training is a difficult work. It cannot be ac- 
complished by legislation alone. It cannot be achieved 
by popular elections, the war-cries or the success of party. 
Xerxes' army, with all the giant trunks of the Black 
Forest at hand, never could build up even a soldier's hut, 
unless the materials were first reduced to shape. They 
must be dealt with individually. And so constitutions 
and statutes, and the most sagacious statesmanship, and 
all the lore and jurisprudence of ages, will be of no avail, 
unless, in the dwelling, the neighborhood, the village, 
the school, the sanctuary, and by the fireside, men are 
trained to self-rule, self-restraint, and the experience of 
freedom harmonizing with authority. 

The fact is that the will of man is depraved. Its force 
is in excess. Each individual would be a law to himself. 



SOCIAL DISCIPLINE. 285 

He is disposed to overlook the claims of the common 
good, under the pressure of interest, passion, and self- 
indulgence. Unless this tendency is corrected or modi- 
fied, he will be a disturbing element in the social body. 
Put him any where, and he will still in some way be in 
antagonism to others. The great necessity is to provide 
means by which he shall be held in check. You cannot 
remove or obviate this necessity by any ingenious organ- 
ization. It will intrude, along with human nature itself, 
every where, in a Fourier Phalanx, a More's Utopia, a 
Bacon's Atalantis, the happy valley of Rasselas, or any 
earthly paradise. 

To train men for society, and for harmonious social 
relations, is a necessary step, if they are to be trained for 
heaven. And unquestionably the providence of God 
makes use of all varieties of social discipline, the hopes 
and fears and sympathies of men, the penalties of social 
opinion and usage, and civil government, as an important 
though subordinate element of their education. He that 
cannot live with his fellows here on earth without tram- 
pling on them, or disregarding their well being, is by the 
very fact disqualified for the social converse and sympa- 
thies of the spiritual world. 

And here we approach the great and important truth, 
that God is educating us through our social as well as 
our intellectual and moral nature. Man was not made 
to be alone — to live withdrawn from human companion- 
ship. The life of the solitary misanthrope or hermit is 
unnatural. We may say with Cowper : 

"Man in society is like a flower 
Blown in its native bed. 'Tis there alone 
His faculties — expanded in full bloom — 
Shine out ; there only reach their proper sphere." 



286 LIFE LESSONS. 

In the constitution of human nature, there are fac- 
ulties and susceptibilities and longings, which, like the 
tendrils of the vine, are ever reaching forth toward 
the props of human sympathy. We cannot stand soli- 
tary. Isolated from society, our nature could not attain 
development. You might as well enclose the young shoot 
in a cylinder reaching up an hundred feet, and then ex- 
pect it to grow. You would only dwarf it. It wants 
light and air, and nature's glad companionship of dew and 
sunshine, or it will pine away and die. The seed must 
be planted in the earth or it will never germinate. So 
our nature must be planted in the soil of society, or it 
will never grow and expand, and bear fruit. It will be- 
come and remain a dry seed wasting its life away, a fos- 
sil, a mummy, or be at least a colorless cellar plant, a 
limb with dry buds, never expanding, or giving forth 
their fragrance. Even Pope has said : 

" Heaven forming each on other to depend, 
A master, or a servant, or a friend, 
Bids each on other for assistance call, 
Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all. 
Want, passions, frailties, closer still ally 
The common interest, or endear the tie. 
To these we owe true friendship, love sincere, 
Each home-felt joy that life inherits here.'' 

If there is any evidence of design in the nature and 
constitution of man, it is to the effect that he was made 
for social service and enjoyment ; his great duties are 
not solitary or selfish ; his highest pleasures are those 
that he communicates or shares with others. And what 
a grand and glorious light do the revelations of heaven 
throw upon this theme ! The mansions above are the 



SOCIAL DISCIPLINE. 287 

home of the blessed ; the sanctified and saved are the 
great household of faith ; the great assembly of the just 
is the family of God. Heaven is the communion of holy 
and happy spirits ; there voice blends with voice in com- 
mon praise ; there soul responds to soul in common puri- 
fied affection ; there is no solitary blessedness ; there is 
no selfish joy. 

For such a destiny as this, who does not see that God 
is training us now ? He is doing it in every variety and 
form of social intercourse. He is bringing before us, 
and holding up to our view those principles, those neces- 
sities, those duties, through which the selfish, isolating, 
wilful elements of our nature are subjected, and brought 
under the control of reason, conscience and kindly affec- 
tions. He is showing us how we must live, if we would 
live in harmony and peace ; by what laws and rules we 
must be guided here, if at last we would be one in spirit 
with the ransomed before the throne. 

And this earthly discipline, to him who views it aright, 
is truly invaluable. A wise man, a truly wise man, will 
not rebel against it, although he may, at times, be tempted 
to say, " Good Lord, deliver us," or even to cry out, " Let 
this cup pass from me." He knows that it is sometimes 
better for us to meet opposition and endure misapprehen- 
sion, than be lulled to lethargy by the monotony of ap- 
plause. He knows that our roughnesses are chafed away 
sometimes by the roughnesses of others, even as the rough 
fragments of the beach are rounded to polished pebbles 
by friction, or what may be called the social discipline 
of the rocks. He knows that human civilization and so- 
cial culture and the grand stimulus to self-improvement 
would be impossible, without those social conditions 
which involve the meeting and mutual operation, and 



288 LIFE LE8S0N8. 

perhaps collision, of social qualities. He knows that un- 
less we have been disciplined to terms of association, we 
cannot associate, unless by contact with others we learn 
to restrain ourselves and know our own place, we shall 
be like a superfluous cog in the wheel, or a discord in the 
general harmony. 

But the highest virtues of heaven find their nursery on 
earth in the field of our social relations. The noblest les- 
sons that can be imprinted upon the soul may be learned 
under the divine tuition amid scenes of social intercourse. 
Here we learn to love, pity, forbear and forgive. Here 
we learn to welcome self-denial for others, to anticipate 
their wants, to guard their steps, to pray for their wel- 
fare, to esteem their gratitude. We are taught also to 
recognize our responsibility in their behalf. Isolate men 
from one another, make hermits of them, and how could 
there ever be any chance for the record of those great 
loving and generous deeds that shine through the night 
of ages like the jewels of time's diadem ? Where had been 
the meekness of Moses, the love of David and Jonathan, the 
national devotion of Esther, the brotherhood of the early 
disciples, the fidelity of the martyrs sealing for others 
their faith with their blood, or the missionary zeal that 
with loftiest heroism, has gone down the deep, dark 
mine of heathenism to rescue those exposed to perish ? 
Nay ! taking a lower level — who would ever have read 
with such a thrill of admiring wonder the noble deeds of 
patriarchs and philanthropists, the self-devotion of a 
Regulus, a Wilkenreid, a Tell, a Gustavus Adolphus, a 
Wilberforce, a Howard, or a Washington ? God's wis- 
dom is gloriously illustrated by so ordering our lot, that 
the highest elements of our spiritual education are 
brought home to our own doors, so that he who would 



SOCIAL DISCIPLINE. 289 

learn the lessons of forbearance, charity, and generous 
self-denial, need seek them not afar, where academic halls 
invite the favored few ; not in senates, where giant minds 
contest the palm of eloquence ; not on the world's battle- 
fields, where genius and valor alone can attain distinc- 
tion ; but by the quiet fireside, where filial duty and 
brotherly and sisterly affection may check lawless pas- 
sion, and impel to the heroic deeds of a self-subdued and 
subjugated will ; by the very way-side of our pilgrim- 
path, where we may take a brother's hand with the out- 
gushing sympathies of fraternal affection ; amid the 
common walks of every day life, where we may endure 
wrong without a murmur and return good for evil ; in 
our own lowly or limited neighborhood, where we may 
find objects of pity and relief, and win the rich blessings 
of those that were ready to perish. 

We are in our school-room. The text-book of social 
duty is thrown open before us, and the finger of the 
Great Teacher is pointing out the lines. Here we are to 
learn to curb self-will, to exercise self-denial, to take into 
view the wants and claims of friends, neighbors and the 
whole human race. The work of ministering angels is 
before us, and we may learn it if we will. How, if we 
spurn text-book and Teacher, can* we avoid the doom 
foreshadowed in the sentence, " He that is unfaithful in 
that which is least, will be also unfaithful in much ?" 



13 



XXXIII. 

INFLUENCE. 

u He being dead, yet speaketh." — Heb. xi. 4. 

NO error is more common among men than that which 
is committed by a false estimate of moral forces. 
Whatever is material and palpable arrests attention, but 
that which is voiceless and unseen, eludes notice. The 
lightning is more demonstrative than the sunbeam, and 
the tornado than the falling dew. Yet, it would be a 
great mistake to judge them by the degree in which they 
are calculated to arrest attention. And so also the 
motives and agencies that shape human action and human 
life, and extend to the moulding of the destiny of nations, 
are slighted by the materialistic philosopher as unworthy 
of scrutiny. He recognises the volcano ; he respects the 
earthquake ; he concedes the importance of mountain 
and valley, river and lake, forest and prairie ; but the 
unseen agencies of thought and emotion, the elements of 
moral truth, fail to attract his gaze. He sifts the sands 
of history, but the subtlest and yet most powerful ele- 
ments elude his search. He retains the quartz pebbles, 
but loses the golden grains of truth. His philosophy is 
the sieve of the Danaidae. 

Yet all around us extends that moral world, invisible 
to the outward eye, which concerns us more deeply than 

(290) 






INFLUENCE. 2gl 

soil or climate. The atmosphere which pervades it is 
influence, and it is not of less importance to the soul 
than air is to the lungs. It may be laden with fragrance ; 
or charged with deadly miasma ; it may bear the healiug 
dews upon its wing, or it may sweep over us in blasts 
deadly as the Simoon of the desert. 

To the student of history, noting generation after 
generation passing off the stage, it is singular to observe 
how they are all linked together, so that no biography of 
character is, or can be perfectly complete, which does 
not recognise in it the shaping elements that have come 
down from distant ages, or been derived from distant 
lands. Society reaching back to the fall in Eden has a 
strange unity, and may be compared to a living organism 
of which influence is the life-blood. Popular opinion 
may be compared to the heart, which receives its tribute, 
through the arteries and veins of the social system, from 
the very extremities, and sends it forth pulsating to find 
its way to the remotest portions and the least conspic- 
uous members of the whole. There is constant change, 
but nothing is lost. Every drop is gathered up and 
helps compose the aggregate. 

There is no fact more obvious to one who observes 
what passes around him, than the power of influence. It 
is a power working unseen, but producing surprising 
results. It works in a sphere susceptible oftentimes of 
deep and lasting impression ; it fashions opinion ; it 
moulds character ; it gives shape to the career and des- 
tiny of men and nations. On influences, seemingly un- 
important, and sometimes exercised without design, great 
events in the world's history have been poised. In the 
moral world there is something analogous to what we see 
in the physical, when the change in direction of a few 



292 LIFE LESSONS. 

pounds pressure on its helm, guides a vessel to the desired 
haven, or sends it shattered upon the rocks. The final 
character and doom of man are determined, like the lines 
on the daguerreotype plate, by influences as subtle and 
impalpable oftentimes as those of a pencil of light. A 
single word, unwisely spoken, has had a history as fatal 
as that of the rash shout that startled the toppling 
avalanche from its poise and hurried it down in ruinous 
crash to entomb a village. The impulse of a moment 
has changed the complexion of a life. A mother's tears, 
not improbably robbed the ocean of a victim, and saved 
to us a Washington. The martial inspiration derived 
from Homer's pages, sent Alexander forth to the con- 
quest of the world. Caesar's ambition was fired from 
reading and envying the life of the Macedonian. Napo- 
leon's plaything while a boy was a cannon. Who does 
not contrast great results with feeble causes, when read- 
ing Doddridge's " Rise and Progress," he is reminded 
that the author was taught by his mother the stories of 
the Bible, before he could read, from the painting of 
Sacred Scenes on the Dutch tiles of the chimney ? 

Just as a breath will obscure the polished mirror, 
so a thought will obscure the lustre of character. As a 
floating atom entering the eye of the body, will blind it, 
so a floating atom of thought may injure or destroy the 
soul's vision of heaven. 

But not less striking is the fact that this influence per- 
petuates itself. It is often the seed of a most magnifi- 
cent or a most lamentable harvest. Even if counteracted, 
its modifying effect is not lost. Like forces uniting at an 
angle, it and that which comes into collision with it, are 
both affected. We see this abundantly illustrated in the 
history of philosophical speculation as well as in human 



INFLUENCE. 293 

biography. The tributary is lost in the main stream, but 
it communicates its volume and some of its peculiarities. 
Two commingled influences yet live in their compound 
result. 

There is an important sense, in which it may be said 
that every man is immortal, even on earth. That which 
constitutes the essential element of his active uselessness, 
or his active mischief — his influence — never dies. It van- 
ishes from view. It becomes impalpable. It is swallowed 
up in the great social aggregate, like the rivulet in the 
river, or absorbed like the dew in the mists and vapors ; 
but.it does not, it cannot perish. It survives all the per- 
sonal fortunes of the individual from whom it emanates 
on earth ; it outlasts the monument, however enduring, 
that is raised over his dust. When the eye is closed to 
its last sleep, and the hands are folded to their last rest, 
it may still be said of their former possessor, " he being 
dead, yet speaketh." 

It is one thing to write a man's biography, closing it at 
the moment when the group of mourners separate around 
his grave ; it is quite another to write its continuation 
from that point, for the last may be infinitely the most 
important, most identified with the destiny of the race. 
Then he begins to speak and act through his influence 
alone. That has gone forth through example, opinions, 
words and looks, thenceforth disencumbered of all mortal 
hindrance, to work directly, with an unearthly, spiritual 
activity, on the minds and hearts of survivors. If traces 
its image there. It shapes the plan, decides the waver- 
ing purpose, lures to the forbidden path, or utters the 
word of remonstrance — the timely warning. It lives no 
longer in a single breast, but in the hearts of all that it 
ever reached, and when they drop away and disappear, 



294 LIFE LESSONS. 

it still survives, transmitted to others from generation to 
generation, transmigrating incorruptible from life to life, 
and in ever-expanding circles, affecting more widely all 
the influences, kindred or adverse, with which it comes 
in contact, and all the lives which it may help to mould. 
This may seem to us, amid the every- day materialism 
of our earthly course, almost like romance, the extrava- 
gance of imagination, revelling amid bare possibilities. 
And yet it is sober fact ; it is stern reality. The influ- 
ence we exert — no matter how humble our sphere — is no 
mere fancy, no mythic creation ; and it is almost the only 
important thing that we can leave behind us on earth. 
Thenceforth and forever, it becomes a power for good or 
evil, working through the thoughts and deeds of surviv- 
ors, and working with a continuousness and energy that 
can never grow weary, that will never sleep, or cease to 
work. That influence has all the intense and unwearied 
activity of a disembodied spirit. It knows nothing of our 
mortal frailty, cramped and hampered by material obsta- 
cles, and exhausted by fatigue. It never grows old. It 
never knows wrinkles or grey hairs. Three-score years 
and ten cannot measure even the childhood of its being. 
The age of a Methusaleh is ephemeral by the side of it. 
We may not be able to trace distinctly its sphere of ac- 
tivity, but we know that it has one. It has a life that is 
indestructible and eternal. It lives in the lives it has 
touched and moulded, in the opinions that bear its im- 
print, in the great causes of selfishness or philanthropy, 
of sin or godliness, with the current of which it has min- 
gled its tributary rills. The missionary carries it with 
him from the hearthstone of a pious home to the banks of 
the Ganges, or the Islands of the Sea. The enterprising 
pioneer transports it afar to the bosom of the wilderness. 



INFLUENCE. 



295 



Its scattered germs spring up amidst Greenland's snows, or 
under tropic suns. It goes with the statesman to the sen- 
ate, with the preacher to the pulpit, with the words that 
types multiply to ten thousand homes. 

There have lived men, intellectually or morally eminent, 
whose influence we are able in some feeble and imperfect 
measure to trace. We can mark it along the track of the 
world's history, in national development, social reform, 
and intellectual revolution. Of all the great and good 
that lived in the infancy of time, and whose names and 
examples have been preserved, it may be said emphati- 
cally, that "they being dead, yet speak." Abel still 
teaches us, as generations before us. The voice of the Patri- 
archs comes down to our day, and the lessons of their ex- 
perience are ringing in our ears. Joseph, and Moses, and 
Joshua, and Samuel are holding up before our eyes to- 
day the testimony which God called them to bear to his 
providence and grace. Solomon's Proverbs outlived his 
temple, and can never perish. Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and 
Ezekiel, and Daniel still prophecy for us. The influence 
of apostles, evangelists, teachers, martyrs, is felt more and 
more widely as generations pass away, and is spreading 
still, and shall spread" till it reaches every spot which the 
foot of man hath trod. The poor widow with her two 
mites has been preaching charity for eighteen centuries, 
and is preaching yet. The good Samaritan, by his spir- 
itual lineage, is still binding up wounds, and caring for 
the wretched by a thousand hands that his spirit guides. 
The grateful penitent on whom the Saviour bestowed the 
eulogy, " She hath done what she could," has won count- 
less treasures for Christ's anointing ; more precious, by 
far than the alabaster box of precious ointment. 

We can trace the influence of the old Greek philoso- 



296 LIFE LESSONS. 

pliers in the shaping of systems that have affected the 
prospects of nations. Plato speaks still in the modifying 
influence which his speculations exerted upon the early 
development of Christian truth. Aristotle, when more 
than a thousand years had passed over his grave, was 
still moulding the scholastic thought of Europe, and 
teaching the minds that from the chairs of the univer- 
sities were to teach the world. Zeno and Epicurus seem 
to rise out of their graves to call distant generations 
still to sit at their feet. So, too, the great and eloquent 
Chrysostom preached to admiring thousands ; but he 
had a larger audience when centuries after his exile and 
hardships, thousands whom he had never seen caught 
up his words, and echoed them forth on a broader stage. 
Augustine exerted, while he mingled with human affairs 
in person, a powerful influence ; but we forget his episcopal 
dignity when we think of Charlemagne reading his writ- 
ings amid the splendor of his court, or Huss poring over 
them in his study, or Luther exploring them in his cell. 

And as it is with the good, so it is with bad men. The 
poisonous streams of their influence roll on to swell the 
great current of the world's thought, and mingle death 
with its waves. How much that was pure and holy has 
thus been neutralized ! How it makes us shudder to 
think of the mischief originated by the blasphemer, the 
swearer, the Sabbath-breaker, the libertine, whose exam- 
ples have lured others to the brink of Hell, or have con- 
stituted them their successors, to snatch the flag of wick- 
edness from their dying grasp and wave it still ! Who 
is not appalled when he attempts to trace the baneful 
influence of parental faithlessness or vice, cursing a 
whole household, or of social profligacy, contaminating 
whole groups with the infection or moral pollution ? 



INFLUENCE. 297 

When Tom Paine's bones, transported to England by 
Cobbett as a speculation, were mouldering in the custom- 
house, too poor to pay the duty, and when at last they 
were thrown overboard into the sea, his influence, the in- 
fluence not merely of his writings, but of his character, 
was poisoning the whole neighborhood of his former 
residence, and spreading more and more widely on both 
sides of the Atlantic. The great villains of other days 
who sought glory and power by sacrificing nations 
to their ambition — the Alexanders, Cassars, and Napo- 
leons of all ages — whom some men for their mere genius 
or valor would almost deify — have not yet become 
cyphers in the sphere of influence. They are still per- 
verting other minds, or firing them by a false ambition. 
Their names and examples are drifted on, like thistle 
down in the wind, to distant lands and ages, to sow in 
ever new fields the seed that shall multiply and perpetu- 
ate the distant curse. 

But, perhaps, among all the illustrations of the widen- 
ing and ever-extending sphere of influence, none is more 
striking than that which is afforded by the history of 
literature. Here, indeed, we sometimes find " fact 
stranger than fiction." It seems like romance to trace 
from mind to mind, and from age to age, the impulse of 
a thought, or a cluster of thoughts, which were almost 
neglected in their own clay. I wonder that among all 
our antiquarian and genealogical students there have 
been so few who have bethought themselves to trace the 
strange lineage of books. In the department of philo- 
sophy, indeed, something has been done, and along the 
line of metaphysical research and development we may 
trace the influence of mind upon mind, theory upon 
theory, and from Plato down to Sir William Hamilton 
13* 



298 LIFE LESSONS. 

or Mansel ; through nominalists and realists ; Roscelin, 
Abelard, and the schoolmen ; Bacon, Locke, and Leibnitz ; 
Kant, Berkeley, and Hume j Reid, Stewart, Jacobi, 
Eichte, Schelling, and Hegel, we may note the successive 
links of a connected chain that stretches over centuries. 

But in the religious world, the exploration has been 
far more imperfect. And yet even here there are some 
striking facts that thrust themselves almost upon our 
notice. There is many a book like Butler's " Analogy," 
or Pascal's " Thoughts," or Baxter's " Call," or " Pil- 
grim's Progress," or others of less fame, that has associ- 
ated with its history strange stories of its influence. A 
polluted literature carries us into scenes of crime, and in 
revels and violence, in courts and prisons we trace the 
progress of its poisonous influence. 

A single book has linked different generations together 
It has spanned ages with its arch of thought ; it has 
bridged the centuries so that others have come down to 
us, or we have gone back to them ; and we have thus 
been permitted to commune with the gifted minds of the 
past, and receive the impulse of their earnest thoughts. 
Sometimes, after a lapse of ages, a book has been dug 
up, as it were, out of old libraries — the fossil strata of 
literature — and has been made, like Paleario's little book, 
to do fresh service in the cause of truth or the conflict 
with error. It has been waked from the sleep of cent- 
uries to speak in fresh tones, even if in quaint speech, 
with the authority of a living prophet. 

Towards the close of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 
two hundred and fifty years or more since, when Raleigh 
was exploring the New World, and Bacon was yet an 
aspirant on the track that led to fame, an obscure Puritan 
minister, named Edmund Bunny, fell in with a work writ- 



INFLUENCE. Z gg 

ten by the Jesuit Parsons, which had some good things 
in it. He thought them too good to be lost ; so he took 
the book, cut the popery out of it, recast it after another 
pattern, and gave it to the printer. It went abroad, aud, 
among others, two men, who afterward became eminent 
nonconformist ministers, were seriously impressed by its 
perusal. An old torn copy strayed away into an humble 
cottage of Shropshire, and fell into the hands of a poor 
man who lent it to Richard Baxter's father. Richard 
was then a boy of fifteen years, but the book came in 
his way and he read it, and it pleased God to make it 
the means of awakening his soul, and leading him to feel 
the inexpressible importance of eternal things. From 
that hour he began a new life, and in his writings, 
throughout a toilsome career, crowned with glorious re- 
vivals, we see reproduced the pungency, point, and 
fervor of that old book known as " Bunny's Resolution." 
"Who that has ever read the " Saint's Rest," or traced the 
ceaseless activity of Baxter's life, will venture to compute 
the results which flowed from the reading of that old 
torn book which the cottager lent to Baxter's father. 

Baxter died in 1691 ; but among the " live books" he 
left behind him was his " Call to the Unconverted," of 
which 20,000 copies are said to have been sold in a 
single year. Such was the harvest that was to furnish 
seed for new harvests on fields that are unexhausted yet. 

About twenty-five summers had passed over Baxter's 
grave when some of his books, — one of them the " Call 
to the Unconverted," so it is said, — fell into the hands of 
a young student at St. Alban's. That student was Philip 
Doddridge, and the reading of Baxter led to his con- 
version. He became the faithful and successful pastor 
of the church in Northampton ; educated in his seminary 



3 oo LIFE LESSONS. 

several young men for the ministry ; wrote liis " Family 
Expositor," which has gone into tens of thousands of fami- 
lies ; composed not a few of the sweetest hymns that for 
a century have been sung in Christian sanctuaries, and 
which we are singing still ; besides producing his 
treatise on " The Rise and Progress of Religion in the 
Soul" — a book which in German, French, and other 
European, as well as in heathen languages, has preached 
to millions and resulted in the conversion of hundreds 
and of thousands. 

Thirty- three years after Doddridge died, a copy of this 
book found its way to the table of Mr. Unwin, a corres- 
pondent of Cowper. A young English statesman, just 
setting out on his journey to Southern France, and in 
want of a book, took it up, and asked its character. 
" One of the best books ever written," replied his com- 
panion, Milner ; " let us take it with us, and read it on 
our journey." The young man readily consented, and 
the reading of that book made upon his mind impressions 
which were never effaced. He began to examine the 
.Bible for himself, and the result was that he was led to 
consecrate his life to the service of Christ. That young 
man was William Wilberforce, whose name is forever 
associated with the legislative reforms and philanthropy 
of the English nation, the abolition of the slave trade and 
the introduction of Christianity into India ; and whose 
devoted piety led him to write his " Practical View of 
Christianity," a work which has travelled around the 
globe, and been read alike on the banks of the Ganges 
and the Mississippi ; of which more than one hundred 
editions have been published, and which the great states- 
man Edmund Burke spent the two last days of his life in 
reading, declaring that he had derived much comfort 






INFLUENCE. 301 

from it, and if lie lived, would thank its author for hav- 
ing sent such a book into the world. 

The volume had been published but a few months when 
it found its way to the Isle of Wight, and fell into the 
hands of a young curate, to whom it had been sent by a 
college friend — a thoughtless candidate for the ministry — 
with the request that he would read it, and tell him what 
he must say about it. He began to read, and could not 
lay down the book till he had read it through. A decided 
change was wrought in his views of divine truth, and he 
declared : " I feel it a debt of gratitude which I owe to 
God and man, to say, that to the unsought and unex- 
pected introduction of Mr. Wilberforce's book, I owe, 
through God's mercy, the first sacred impression which I 
ever received as to the spiritual nature of the Gospel 
System." 

That young curate was Legh Richmond, and his works 
will live, and he being dead, will continue to speak, as 
long as there is a heart to be moved by the simple story 
of " The Poor African/' or " The Dairyman's Daughter." 

But more than this ; Wilberforce's book crossed the 
Tweed, and fell into the hands of a young Scotch clergy- 
man, absorbed in scientific pursuits, and oblivious of the 
sacred responsibilities of his calling ; a man nevertheless 
of princely gifts, of whom that shrewd judge Andrew 
Fuller said, that " if he would throw aside his notes and 
preach extempore, he might be king of Scotland." He 
was learned, eloquent, ambitious, and worldly, but the 
Providence that designed him for higher service brought 
him low on the bed of sickness, and after months of weary 
confinement to his room, the " Practical View" fell into his 
hands. This event proved the turning-point in his career ; 
and when Dr. Chalmers told the story of his conversion 



3 o2 LIFE LESSONS. 

to God, he declared that Mr^Wilberforce's book brought 
on " a great revolution in all his opinions about Chris- 
tianity," and that he " experienced a very great transi- 
tion of sentiment in consequence of reading his work." 
The life of Dr. Chalmers was shaped anew by that book. 
It made another man of him ; it consecrated his princely 
intellect to the cause of evangelical truth ; it fitted him 
to speak forth in trumpet tones to Christendom, and to 
become the Moses of the Exodus of the Free Church of 
Scotland from its bondage to State patronage and con- 
trol. 

But the book that gave a new shaping to his career 
crossed the Atlantic. It rekindled the flame of expiring 
devotion in the Episcopal Church of Yirginia, and the 
evangelical character and labors of Bishops White, arid 
Madison, and Mead cannot be depicted except with Wil- 
berforce's book in full view in the background. Here 
we pause. But the stream, the fountain head of which 
was in the old torn copy of " Bunny's Resolution," and 
which was swelled by the tributaries of Baxter's " Call," 
and Doddridge's " Rise and Progress," and Wilberforce's 
" Practical View," and Legh Richmond's " Dairyman's 
Daughter," does not pause. It is flowing still, and no- 
thing shall arrest its rising tide and swelling current 
till the earth is covered with the knowledge of the Lord 
as the waters cover the sea. 

It is only rarely that we can attain that historic ele- 
vation from which we are enabled with our feeble vision 
to look down and trace the streams of influence winding 
their way in silver light. Many of them are hidden from 
view as they course along through overshadowed marsh 
or obscure valleys beyond the distant hills. But they 
are flowing, although unseen, wherever thought finds 



INFLUENCE. 



3°3 



expression or there are hearts to be impressed. The 
rill has its mission as well as the river ; the dew-drop as 
well as the mighty Amazon. Proper influence in the 
lower circle is as real and as essential as that which is 
exerted in senates and cabinet councils. We may in 
vain essay to trace its path, but to the eye of heaven it 
may be like the stream that winds its way through 
desert sands and clothes its banks with herbage and 
with flowers. But sometimes we can trace it. A mo- 
ther's prayers and tears, sisterly fidelity, parental ex- 
ample, filial piety ; how often have these been fountains 
of blessing to the household ; how often have they mi- 
nistered strength to the tempted, or filled the heart of 
the weary pilgrim with joy, or proved the sources of 
streams that have borne down a tide of blessing to after 
generations ! The records of humble life, unread by the 
great world, are filled with illustrations of the power of 
influence. It is felt by " village Hampdens" and " mute, 
inglorious Miltons." It issues forth from forest sanc- 
tuaries, and district schoolrooms, and cottage firesides. 
The history of a household, properly written, would be a 
commentary on the plastic power of influence derived 
from precept and example. 

No thoughtful man can afford to overlook or disregard 
facts like these. We live in a world where unseen ele- 
ments are giving shape to human character and human 
destiny ; where we are forever receiving and giving off 
impressions that will still endure when the chiselled 
lines of the granite have crumbled, and the headstones 
of our own graves shall have claimed kindred with the 
dust they once commemorated. Is it not a solemn world 
to live in ? Is it not a fearful responsibility that rests 
upon us ? And how can that responsibility be evaded ? 



304 LIFE LESSONS. 

We cannot divest ourselves of influence, however obscure 
our sphere, and we cannot escape from it except by going 
out of the world. It is as essential to our social life as 
the air we breathe. We are integral parts of the social 
organism. The blood that flows through the veins of a 
single member circulates abroad till it has, directly or 
indirectly, been felt in the entire system. 

Who, then, can fail to see and confess the importance 
of individual influence — of that which we exert now, and 
that which will survive our departure from earth ? For 
that influence we are responsible. Every day we are de- 
termining what it shall be. It cannot be simply neutral ; 
it must of necessity be for good or evil. It must be on 
the side of God or against Him. It must commend or 
discountenance religion. And is it of no account if our 
influence may contribute to decide some wavering mind 
in its consideration of the great question that concerns 
its final destiny ? Who would not pray for wisdom to 
enable him to speak those words and set that example 
which shall guide others to the living fountain, to the 
foot of the cross, to a throne of grace ? Who, knowing 
that his influence will live on — " a life beyond life" — and 
endure in some form, however imperceptible to human 
scrutiny, for ages to come, will not confess to himself the 
imperative importance of guarding that influence from 
all that is contaminating, and sending it forth, like a 
tireless and white-robed angel, on its interminable mis- 
sion of charity and blessing ? 



XXXIV. 

THE TONGUE. 

"Death and life are in the power of the tongue." — Prov. xviii. 21. 

AMONG- the means of influence possessed by men, 
not the least worthy of our attention is the power 
of the tongue. If it were only properly controlled and 
employed, what a different face the world would wear! 
If only those words were spoken that should be, what a 
vast change would come over these scenes of human so- 
ciety — a change such as would bring with it all that we 
could ask to bless our sin-cursed world, and change the 
moral waste to an Eden. Right words, the fruit of right 
thoughts, would be accompanied by right deeds. They 
would breathe abroad an atmosphere of peace and purity. 
They would be employed to repress the very beginnings 
of evil. They would meet the first symptoms of budding- 
iniquity with indignant rebuke. 

Such a result we are bound to seek. As Christians we 
can aim at nothing short of it. 

What a wonderful faculty is that of human speech ! It 
can give form and expression to each thought of the 
mind and each feeling of the heart. It can so shape it 
into articulate utterance, so embody it, that it can take 
its way directly into the soul of another, there confront- 
ing other thoughts or mingling with them, like one do- 

(305) 



3 o6 LIFE LESSONS. 

mesticated at a strange fireside. It gives a sort of 
corporeal existence to the invisible, impalpable thought, 
clothes its spiritual substance, as it were, with flesh and 
bones, gives it such a personal being and identity, that 
its lineaments and features stand out as if on the paint- 
er's canvas, so that when we have met it once we can 
recognize it again. 

Ancient fable tells us of a certain monster known by 
the name of Proteus. He had the faculty of assuming 
any shape at will. He might be a tree or a stone, a ser- 
pent or a dove, a lion or a lamb, and from each of these 
or a thousand other forms he could easily and at once 
pass to another as he chose. 

Such a fable, however, is realized in the tongue. It 
can give utterance to thoughts as various as the objects 
that meet our eyes. It can be the dove or the serpent, 
the eagle or the jackal. It can bless or curse. It can 
whisper slander or utter praise. It can speak in tones 
of kindness, or send forth the ravings of bitter and vin- 
dictive passion. It can vent the oath, or pour out the 
homage of devout and humble prayer. It can set before 
us the sublimes t truths of heaven, or utter the blasphemies 
of the world of woe. It can carry to other hearts the 
sympathy of our own, or mix in their cup of anguish new 
dregs of bitterness. It can speak in the sufferer's ear 
in tones that seem like heavenly music, or give back 
sounds echoed as it were from the desperation of fiends. 
It can throw a holy charm around the hour of social con- 
verse, or it can poison peace by the harshness of its ex- 
pressions. Now it becomes a sort of angel guide leading 
us by some lofty track of thought up to the throne, and 
again it can whisper in our ear the diabolical suggestions 
of fallen spirits. It can assume by turns every person- 



THE TONGUE. 307 

ality, and portray before us every form of character. It 
can cherish purity or vileness ; fan the fire of love or the 
flames of discord ; speak words that are like drawn 
swords, or such as find their emblem in the olive leaf. 
Who does not know, who has not felt, the power of the 
tongue, — in the social circle, in the public assembly, in 
the scenes of business, pleasure or devotion. I know 
that the power of speech is various with different indi- 
viduals. Some have it to a greater and others to a less 
degree. In some cases it has been trained to what seems 
an almost superhuman effort. It can hold crowds en- 
chanted upon a breath. It can charm them with a 
whisper. It can hush the thronged audience-room till it 
is silent as the grave, and then again carry the multitude 
away by a resistless tide of sympathy till there outbursts 
the long, loud shout of applause. The tongue of Demos- 
thenes — how it ruled the fierce democracy of Athens, and 
swayed them above all the gold of Philip ! The eloquence 
of Cicero — how it carried back the decaying patrician 
pride of Rome to the days of her early and stern se- 
verity, or almost charmed it into forgetfulness of its de- 
generacy and disgrace ! The tongue of Peter the Hermit 
preaching through Europe the crusade of the Middle Ages, 
till the leaven of his enthusiasm pervaded the mass of the 
nations, and they cried responsive as with one loud shout, 
" God wills it," and rushed madly and blindly to cover 
the hills of Palestine with their bleaching bones, — White- 
field's power of speech that could melt Franklin's cold, cal- 
culating utilitarianism into the flow of impulsive generosity, 
or transport the polished, courtly, critical Chesterfield, 
till, beside himself and carried away by the spirit of the 
scene he cried out with shuddering alarm — the eloquence 
of our own Henry, whose words communicated their 



3 o8 LIFE LESSONS. 

electric shock to other minds and decided the question 
that ushered in the scenes of the Revolution — these all 
illustrate the strange power which God has sometimes 
given to the tongue of man. It is a wonderful, a fear- 
fully wonderful gift ! 

But you may say all do not possess it. In fact, few 
do. It is rarely bestowed. But then, if you will con- 
sider it, the great feats of the power of speech on the 
public theatre, are but rare and transient things. They 
come once in an age. They are oftener remembered for 
what they were, than for what they have accomplished. 
They were phenomena out of the wonted course of 
things. They rose above the daily routine of life like 
mountain summits, and, like them, too, above the sphere 
of common appreciation. The great work that changes 
society, remolds the nations, renews the heart, is going 
on far below, around the mountain's base. The tongue, 
in the house and by the way, in the store, the office, the 
saloon, the parlor : in the schoolroom and by the domestic 
hearth, is doing a work far mightier than it is doing in 
the crowded court room, or in legislative halls, or even 
in the pulpit. It speaks to fewer hearers perhaps, but 
infinitely oftener and it is heard and comprehended bet- 
ter. It is not addressed to the listless. Its eloquence is 
not wasted. It is not above the capacity of the hearer. 
It does not flow in rounded periods or elaborate sentences 
it is true, but its idiomatic phraseology is not the less 
forcible for all that. Each word tells. It provokes an 
answer. It is a link in a conversation that fuses minds 
together. One comment by the fireside may neutralize 
the effect of a sermon. One slighting, jesting remark 
may have force enough to break off the truth-tipped 
point of an arrow of conviction and send a soul to hell. 



THE TONGUE. 309 

Review your own experience. What do you remember 
best ? What has impressed you most. In few instances 
the preacher's words, or the conclusions of the eloquent 
moralist. It is the words you heard in ordinary conver- 
sation, from the lips of a friend or associate, addressed 
to few ears beside your own — perhaps to yours only. 
The voices of loved ones in your early home, that spoke 
the lessons of parental anxiety, or brotherly or sisterly 
affection ; the jests, or boasts, or opinions of some older 
or more experienced companion ; perhaps the foul-mouthed 
vulgarity of abandoned men ; perhaps the witticisms or 
wild fancies of gay and reckless revellers ; perhaps the 
short sentence that whispered in your ear, in warning 
tones, the epitomized experience of a lifetime ; perhaps 
the sneer, half hypocritic, half malicious, that drew you 
to regard duty, and truth, and holiness, as hateful, obso- 
lete notions, just fit for a dying man, or a heartless as- 
cetic ; perhaps the words that spoke the creed of 
Mammon, or the liturgy of his worshippers ; perhaps 
those that expressed the low and sordid morality of the 
worldling ; or it may be something better than these, — 
the kind counsel of the true friend, who pointed out a 
better path of life ; — these, and things like these, are 
what the mind retains. They fasten on it with a grasp 
that outlasts every other. Only the last day will reveal 
to us the power of a word — the power of a single utter- 
ance. To tell what a word has done, what a word may 
do, might excite your incredulity. It is the seed of a 
harvest, the pivot on which a life has revolved, the motto 
and watchword of an eternal existence. 

Can you tell how the career of men is shaped even for 
time ? How often is it done by words ! A sailor's 
yarn makes a Nelson or a Paul Jones. The fashionable 



3 io LIFE LESSONS. 

nonsense and lofty airs of an assuming fop brings out 
miniature Nashes, Brummels, and D'Orsays in abundance. 
Boasts of an easy conscience and lax morality turn the 
heads of heedless youth, and make them knaves or 
sharpers before they are men. Sacred words, shaped to 
profanation and blasphemy by vile men, distort the moral 
image of the soul for time and eternity. The Judgment 
will reveal how a sentence, a word, gave the cast 
to its destiny. A few words from President D wight 
secured to American science the honored name of 
Silliman. The remonstrance of an idle classmate 
saying to Paley — " It is a sin for you to be idle ; you 
have talent, you can do something in the world ; I can- 
not," gave shape to the life that procured us the " Natural 
Theology" and " Evidences of Christianity." McCheyne, 
of Scotland, was once passing a foundry, and stopped 
to gaze on the bright glow of the furnace. He turned to 
the man that fed it, and said : " Does that fire mind you 
of any thing ?" That was all, and he went his way ; but 
the man he addressed never rested till he had heeded the 
admonition to " flee from the wrath to come." Henry II. 
of England let drop in hasty passion a few words that 
resulted in the murder of the Archbishop Thomas a 
Becket. That deed convulsed all England, and affected 
its condition for centuries. 

But it is needless to recapitulate illustrations of the 
truth. If character has influence, words are its repre- 
sentatives. A whole character may be imprinted on a 
sentence, and that sentence, like a stereotyped plate, may 
go on imprinting its image, and reproducing itself from 
day to day, from age to age. In one sense a word spoken 
never dies. Like our influence, and a part of it, it lives 
on to the judgment. As the thunder among the moun- 



THE TONGUE. 311 

tains will roll on from crag to crag, verberating and re- 
verberating to the last, so the word spoken will echo on 
and on, till its tone is mingled with the blast of that 
trumpet that shall awake the dead. The heart of each 
that hears it is a sounding-board to transmit its tones. 

Such, then, is the power of words. They are thoughts 
incorporated ; fitted for active service, going out armed 
to their work, bearing the sword or the olive leaf, win- 
ning or assaulting, attacking or repelling, all they meet. 
We marshal them, and they are a mighty host. Single, 
they may be Goliahs ; united and multiplied, they may be 
a phalanx. 

Think how many words must go to make up the utter- 
ance of a life ; how every one, even the idle word for 
which we are to account in the judgment, makes and 
leaves its impression ; how it essays to stamp some fea- 
ture or feeling of our hearts upon others' experience ; 
and then estimate, if you can, the power of words ! It 
defies computation. We might better attempt to count 
the sands on the seashore. We might as well try to 
number the raindrops. Our words are the verbal image 
of ourselves. If we could arrest them and look them in 
the face, we should see ourselves reflected in a mirror, 
and perhaps be forced to blush. How many daguerreo- 
types of our inner being have we thus cast off, by which 
those that gaze on them are changed into the same im- 
age ! Surely the power of speech is wonderful, fearfully 
wonderful, as an element of probation. The inference of 
our responsibility for it then is plain. 

I need scarcely say that power and responsibility are 
justly proportioned to each other. The degree of the 
first is the measure of the last. The man of ten talents 
has a more fearful account to render than the possessor 



3 i2 LIFE LESSONS. 

of five, or two, or one. For all that we have, little or 
much, we are held responsible to the same high tribunal. 
For everything that confers influence, for everything 
that can be used for God or perverted to evil, for every- 
thing by which we may bless or curse the world, honor 
or dishonor God, we must be held to a strict account. 

The power of speech and the use we make of it, will 
not, cannot, therefore, be overlooked. It is a talent, and 
not a mean or trivial one, which we all possess. We may 
have it indeed in different degrees. In one case it may 
be rough and unwieldy, in another it may be as the pol- 
ished Damascus blade. But whether it be like the beam 
of Goliah's spear, or only as the pebble-stone out of the 
brook, in either case it is summoned to do service for 
God. We hold it in trust. We are to use it as stew- 
ards who are to give account. It is capital on which we 
are to trade for God, for eternity. Xot one fraction or 
farthing of it may be wasted or misemployed. This is, 
indeed, a high standard, but it is the true one. Devise 
any other if you cau. Surely you will not class yourself 
with the number of those reprobated by inspiration as 
"fools," who say, " Our tongue is our own, who is Lord 
over us?' 7 You will not presume to contradict Christ 
when he says, " by thy words thou shalt be justified and 
by thy words thou shalt be condemned." You will not 
presume to annul that eternal enactment, " for every idle 
word that men speak, they shall give account in the day 
of judgment." You must admit, to the full, your respon- 
sibility for the use you make of your tongue. 

How then shall it be employed ? 

Not at random. There is verily such a thing as a duty 
of silence. In some cases we may serve God and our 
neighbor best by saying nothing. We can be altogether 



THE TONGUE. 3 ! 3 

the most useful and serviceable by " holding our tongue." 
This may seem to some a very simple thing and of easy 
attainment, and in some cases it may be. But in others 
it is more arduous. To know when we ought to be silent, 
and to act on our knowledge, is a great thing. Some 
lack the first, and some the last, and some both. But 
there is a power in silence that is most expressive to ap- 
prove or condemn. 

John Jay, when ambassador to France, was once in a 
company of infidels at Paris. They talked on recklessly, 
venting their spite at the Bible. Jay was silent. It 
troubled them. He did not pronounce their shibboleth. 
They could not go on while that grave, just, true man sat 
there a silent spectator, a sort of solemn judge, riveting 
at last their gaze. No wonder his bearing forced them 
to speak, and when they asked, as if to relieve themselves 
of their confusion and provoke his acquiescence, " Do you 
believe in Jesus Christ?" his silence had prepared the 
way for his confusing and confounding answer, " I do, and 
I thank God that I do." He was silent at the right time, 
and spoke at the right time, and when he spoke said the 
right thing. 

In other cases silence might justly be construed into 
acquiescence. There are times when we are called upon 
to speak. It requires study and discretion to know when 
these occasions arise, and to know ivhat to speak. Much 
mischief may be done by the wrong word : much good 
by the right one. The celebrated Chancellor of the Uni- 
versity of Paris, John Gerson, than whom an abler man 
was not to be found among the thinkers of his century, 
on writing out advice for a friend with whom he might, 
if he had chosen, have communicated orally, gave as a 
reason, that rarely had he ever entered into a lengthened 
14 



3H 



LIFE LESSONS. 



conversation, but upon review he discovered that he had 
said something that he regretted and would wish re- 
called. 

There are some persons whose tongues seem to have 
solved the puzzling problem of perpetual motion. Like 
the clapper of a windmill, the lightest breath will disturb 
their equilibrium. 

In such cases the conversation may well be expected 
to be a very shallow stream. Instead of speaking what 
they have to say, and then like the Sandwich Islander, 
feeling what he wrote, " that thought is done," they string 
word upon word, until by endless repetition they exhaust 
at once the patience of the hearer and their own credit 
for sense. Indeed any other sounds may answer as well 
as those they utter, and they compare, not creditably to 
themselves, with him of whom the poet says : 

" He- went a whistling for the want of thought." 

There was some significance in that lesson of the old 
Philosopher, who insisted that his pupils should first attain 
that preliminary of wisdom, the power of silence. Be- 
fore they asked a question they must learn to listen. It 
involved one of the greatest pieces of self-mastery — the 
mastery of the tongue. To converse well — letting alone 
the matter of duty, we must learn when to be silent. 

Cowper never wrote a truer thing than when he said, 

"Words learned by rote a parrot may rehearse 
But talking is not always to converse ; 
Not more distinct from harmony divine, 
The constant creaking of a country sign." 

This leads us to remark again that the tongue should 



THE TONGUE. 3 ! 5 

never be suffered to become the instrument of passion. 
If anger or envy stir within your heart, stifle it there. 
You may sometimes smother a fire, that if once suffered 
to find vent, could not be extinguished by copious streams. 
A tongue mastered by passion is a terrible thing. It 
seems as Scripture expresses it, to be literally " set on 
fire of Hell." It blazes out, as in flames of the pit, with 
curses and imprecations, oaths and blasphemies. There 
are tongues to which vulgarity and profanity will not 
adhere, until passion has prepared them for it. Then 
they are possessed apparently by the evil one. The wires 
that move the tongue seem actually worked by his fingers, 
and we listen to speech which evidently befits such an 
original. 

In some cases again there may be a high degree of 
earnestness, that is perfectly justifiable, but there are 
proper limits within which even this should be confined. 
Cowper was not the only one who could say 

" Preserve rne from a thing I dread and hate, 
A duel in the form of a debate." 

Conversation which ought to be made, and which may 
be made the charm of social life, should never become 
its curse. And yet it will be, if evil surmisings or bitter 
disputings are allowed to change it into the instrument 
of personal assault, or self-exhibition indulging in taunts, 
contradictions, reproaches, or assumptions. 

There are times indeed, when sin lifts its head, and 
wrong goes boldly forth, when words ought to be 
swords unscabbarded, and sentences battalions, when the 
utterances of truth and soberness should be like those of 
Paul, when he made the guilty Felix tremble on his 
judgment seat. There are times when words should be, 



3 i6 LIFE LE880N8. 

as it were, deeds, every one a blow in defence of trampled 
justice, and every man then who wavers or withholds his 
utterance, or sells his tongue to silence, is guilty of trea- 
son to the majesty of truth. It had better be cut out 
than left to be guilty of such ignominious dereliction of 
duty. The delinquent might well imprecate upon it the 
curse that David invited, should he become unfaithful to 
the sacred city, that it might " cleave to the roof of his 
mouth." 

But while the tongue is not to be made the instrument 
of passion, it should be the organ of kindness and charity. 
What a power of blessing is stored up in it ! Kind words 
are the sweetest music. There is something heavenly in 
their tone. In the jar and tumult of surrounding pas- 
sion, they seem to whisper like Jesus on the troubled sea, 
" Peace be still." The burdened heart forgets its load. 
The fevered sufferer loses something of his restlessness, 
and feels the charm of the magic utterance. The world 
looks the brighter, and flowers more beautiful, for kind 
words. The humblest home — the rudest hovel becomes 
a kind of palace of content. Heaven does not seem so 
strange a world to us, for angels hover round our hearth- 
stone. And the influence goes abroad with us. As the 
oil poured on the troubled waters will calm them, inso- 
much that where they dashed madly in foam, they sink 
at length to a glassy surface on which heaven is mirrored, 
so it is with the power of kind words. They hush the 
agitated and restless social elements to repose, and spread 
abroad a hallowed influence. 

But the tongue may be made an instrument of slander. 
No one questions the power of malice when it resorts to 
this weapon. Its method then compares with an open 
public charge, as an assassin does with a soldier in the 



THE TONGUE. 317 

ranks on the open field. It is an enemy that stabs in the 
dark. It is a foe shooting from behind a hedge. It is 
an Indian darting his tomahawk at a sleeping victim. A 
word that secretly assails another's character is a blast 
of death. Though uttered in a breath, it is the breath 
of a miasma. 

Slander is the tongue's meanest work — both cowardly 
and impure. If you dip your hands in filth, to fling it 
at another, you pollute your hands to stain his dress, and 
only make yourself the more contemptible of the two; 
and if you use the tongue instead of the fingers, it only 
transfers the outward disgrace to the soul within. 

And as to the use of Tile language, which to some 
seems congenial, it is a sin not only against God, but 
against the tongue itself. When this is so employed, it 
must be because all true and pure taste is corrupted, for 
the tongue was never given to relish foul words, any 
more than vile food. And it should be borne in mind 
that, when it is so perverted, it is one of the most efficient 
agents of evil, let loose on earth. A foul or obscene 
word, though clothed about with elegant paragraphs, is 
an apostle of depravity. It may enter the heart in dis- 
guise, but it is as Satan entered into Eden to pollute and 
destroy. A serpent lurks under the angel robes of elo- 
quent expression. Many is the mind into which the 
tongue of the vile man has introduced some foul image, 
that has left a serpent's trail behind it, as it crawled in 
and coiled itself about the heart's core, folding it like a 
guardian demon — not angel — for final doom. 

But preeminently the tongue should be consecrated ; it 
should be " Holiness to the Lord." The words that we 
speak should be words of truth and soberness. Liberty 
of speech is a noble privilege, but God gives no liberty 



3 i8 LIFE LESSONS. 

to speak the teachings of sin. Our freedom is linked 
with accountability. Speak as you will, but remember 
you are to be judged. 

How much holy work, if the tongue was a consecrated 
thing, might be done for G-od by it ! Not in the pulpit 
only, or in the hall of debate, or on the lecturer's plat- 
form, or in the courts of justice, but in the daily walks 
of life, in humble scenes, by the fireside, in the social 
circle, in familiar conversation, in confidential inter- 
course. If the Gospel of Christ dwelt in every heart, 
and the love of Christ on every tongue, all of us would 
become evangelists. Our words in the ears of a dying 
world, would be as the message of a prophet, rich with 
the peace and hope of heaven. And why should they 
not be? Why should not yours be an example to 
others ? 

Do you not hope at last to be numbered among the 
angel throng that surround the throne ? And if so, how 
will your tongue be employed ? They will be clothed in 
holiness. They will speak the praise and sing the glory 
of Him who is glorious in holiness. Not an utterance 
will escape them that might not be whispered in the ear 
of God, that might not be echoed from world to world, 
throughout the universe, or which, wherever it might be 
heard, would not be hailed as pure and blessed. 

And shall that tongue on which such an honor waits 
degrade itself to the vileness and frivolity of earth? 
Shall it forget its high destiny and bandy words in 
foolish jest? Shall it — aspiring to an angel's place — 
act rather a devil's part, and whisper sin, when it is yet 
to sing " the new song ?" 



XXXV. 

THE POWER OP EXAMPLE. 

"Be thou an example." — 1 Tim. iv. 12. 

THE power of example is unquestionable. It springs 
as a necessity from the circumstances of our social 
condition, and the susceptibilities of human nature. If 
there was but one man in the world, or if all dwelt apart 
like hermits in their solitude, example would be a word 
without meaning. But man is a social being. He has a 
social nature. It is this that brings us together in fami- 
lies, societies, communities, states, confederations, nations. 
That cluster of houses which you see afar in the quiet 
valley, forming a humble village, has a meaning, and fur- 
nishes you one definition of man, — as good, certainly, as 
the famous one of Plato — a gregarious animal, one that 
loves to live in society, in the neighborhood of others. 
Such association makes one man with his life, words, 
deeds, known to his neighbor. These are placed before 
each as his book is before the student to read and study. 
They are the book of human nature, and if we turn from 
every other, we cannot turn from this. It meets us every 
where, making the whole world our schoolroom, so that 
in our houses, at our business, in the street, in the public 
assembly, we are, in spite of ourselves, lessons to one an- 
other. 

And then another definition of man is that of an imi- 

(319) 



3 20 LIFE LESSONS. 

tative animal. What lie sees others do, he learns to do 
himself. This susceptibility to imitation is not the re- 
sult of reason, or the fruit of consideration. It is, in 
fact, strongest where reason is weakest, in the child, al- 
though it never probably entirely disappears. You may, 
perhaps, on some occasion when you have been engaged 
in earnest speech have had your attention called to the 
little child before you, studying you as a lesson, and per- 
haps imitating your manner or gesture, or trying to 
mouth your words. 

This imitative faculty, especially in early life, is a kind 
of necessity of our being. It needs to be most active, 
then, when we are becoming fitted to the new, strange 
world around us. Just think what a vast number of 
sounds a child must learn to imitate, in order to express 
its wants, and all usually acquired, to the most exact in- 
tonation, before it is six years old! Think. how many 
things it has learned to do at that age by means of the 
power of imitation ! What a wonderful susceptibility 
all this indicates! And it is necessary. Yet what a 
danger of perversion often accompanies it ! As evil is 
more readily learned than good, so this susceptibility in 
a false direction is morbidly and precociously active. 
How quickly a child falling into the evil company of 
those a little older than itself, learns to be like them ; 
can recite, at a second's notice, all their vulgar slang, all 
their pet phrases, all their obscene or profane language ! 
Their manners, their gestures, their modes of speech and 
tone, will sometimes be copied with a surprising accur- 
acy, and a whole company sometimes will so taint one 
another by the power of example and imitation, that they 
seem as like as coins struck from the same die. And 
how fully this holds true with youth gathered in acad- 



THE POWER OF EXAMPLE. 321 

emies, or colleges, or professional schools, few who have 
not seen, are able to appreciate. One leading mind will 
sometimes furnish the example that sets the fashion. It 
has a power over the others like the sun over the plan- 
ets ; it holds them around it, each in its orbit, like 
attendant satellites, receiving from the power of its at- 
traction, the law that regulates their motion. There are 
few minds comparatively of so firm a texture as to resist 
the influence, and make orbits of their own. You may 
meet young men, who imagine they are very strong- 
minded in rising above the puritanical notions of their 
early training, and who fling off the restraints of common 
sense, as a madman would his straight-jacket, who have 
made a mistake just as gross as that of a drowning man 
who imagined he had learned to swim, or that of one 
jumping from a church-steeple that he had learned to 
fly. The poor, pitiable fool becomes the victim of his 
deluded and deluding fancies. He has become so con- 
fused morally by the example of his profligate or reckless 
associates, that he has not sense enough left to see that 
instead of being very strong-minded, he is very weak- 
minded, a piece of wax that every body stamps his seal 
on, till a thousand confused images, each obliterating all 
but the fragments of its predecessor, leave him a perfect 
nondescript, without a single line or angle of character 
that is sure to last long enough to bear being defined. 

And you may see the power of example over this imi- 
tative faculty of man in other things. What is fashion, 
what is the current meaning of the word ? Something 
to imitate, something that is imitated. There are some 
zones of human society where the highest conception of 
Omnipotence, or what might be taken for a God, a thing 
" to be glorified and enjoyed forever," is — fashion. There 
14* 



322 LIFE LESSONS. 

are persons who are incarnate lumps of fashion ; within, 
their thoughts are fashion ; without, their clothes are 
fashion. Fashion governs them as much as the moon 
does the tides. And yet fashion is but one result 
of the power of example. Men do as their fellows do. 
They dress, speak, think, act by the rules of fashion. 
One coward's example on the field of battle, one de- 
serter's going over to the foe, has placed a crown on one 
man's head and torn it from another's ; has, in fact, 
transferred an empire. If you go into a community or a 
city where dissipation prevails, the strength of the vice 
is in the power of example. Men will swear, gamble, 
drink, carouse, by falling into a society or company with 
which it is the fashion to do so. Even men without prin- 
ciple of their own, will be restrained by the example of 
the good. When Lord Peterborough lodged for a season 
with Fenelon, the piety and virtue of the latter had such 
effect upon the nobleman that he exclaimed at parting, 
" If I stay here any longer I shall become a Christian in 
spite of myself." The example of a pious slave has some- 
times been made the means of a master's conversion. 
Many anecdotes might be given to illustrate the sancti- 
fied and effectual influence of holy example. 

The daughter of an impenitent mother was about to 
make a profession of her faith in Christ. It wrought 
deeply upon the mother's heart. " Well," said she, with 
tears in her eyes, " I will resist no longer. How can I 
bear to see my clear child love and read the Scriptures, 
while I never look into the Bible ; to see her retire and 
seek G-od, while I never pray ; to see her going to the 
Lord's table, while his death is nothing to me !" " Ah !" 
said she, to the minister who spoke with her of her daugh- 
ter's intention, wiping her eyes, " yes ; I know she is 



THE POWER OF EXAMPLE. 323 

right and I am wrong. I have seen her firm under re- 
proach, and patient under provocation, and cheerful in 
all her sufferings. When in her late illness she was look- 
ing for dissolution, heaven stood in her face. that I 
were as fit to die ! I ought to have taught her, but I am 
sure she has taught me. How can I bear to see her join- 
ing the church of God, and leaving me behind, perhaps 
forever." From that hour she prayed in earnest that the 
God of her child would be her God, and soon they were 
seen walking together in " the way that is everlasting." 

It is thus that the example of a holy life or an evil life 
multiplies itself. We are addressed by it as imitative 
beings, breathing the atmosphere and catching up the 
opinions that surround us. Even while we gaze upon it, 
we feel its transforming power. It is insensibly im- 
printing its image on our hearts. We become accustomed 
to it, and if it be hateful, gradually lose our repugnance 
to it. It is in the study of example that we feel espe- 
cially the force of Pope's lines : 

" Vice is a monster of so frightful mem, 
As to be hated needs but to be seen ; 
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

But the power of example is seen still more when we 
compare it with other sources of influence. It is the 
most effectual of all preachers. Words are powerful, 
but " actions speak louder than words." These last are 
mighty, but example is mightier. The poet has said of 
words : 

" Words are things, and a small drop of ink, 
Falling like dew upon a thought, produces 
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think." 



324 LIFE LES80N8. 

Yet that word will die away on your ear ; that thought 
will vanish with the closed book. You may forget the 
one, you may neglect the other. But example cannot so 
easily be set aside. The logic of a man's life is mightier 
than the eloquence of speech. He may talk like an an- 
gel of the beauty of virtue and the excellence of religion, 
but if his life is that of a devil, he refutes his own argu- 
ments faster than he can bring them forward. And so 
on the other hand, the life may have an eloquence that 
preaches beyond the power of language, the excellence 
and duty of religion. A young man who was once about 
to be ordained as a Christian minister, stated that at one 
period of his life he had been nearly betrayed into the 
principles of infidelity, " but," lie added, " there was one 
argument in favor of Christianity which I could never 
refute, the consistent conduct of my own father." It was 
not the words that had been taught him, it was not the 
arguments of learned men, it was not the weight of au- 
thority, it was not the pulpit lessons of the Sabbath, it 
was the consistent conduct of Ms oivn father that proved 
his safeguard. There was a power in parental example 
from which he could not break away. Home example is 
something that a child can understand. It is the alpha- 
bet of life's spelling-book, that it knows by heart, before 
it can spell its first word in the primer. The catechism 
of parental example is far more important and effectual 
on the young mind, than any composed by great divines 
or learned scholars, than any that is taught by question 
and answer. And it is easier learned. There are no 
hard words in it. It does not need an interpreter. Its 
doctrines are plain and simple — level to a child's com- 
prehension. It needs no illustration. It is all illustra- 
tion itself. Its lessons are life pictures, read at a glance. 



TEE POWER OF EXAMPLE. 325 

Little may a parent be aware of that infantile sagacity 
that translates things before it knows the meaning of 
words. Example sows the seeds of life's harvest, some- 
times before a child can speak. That early home, by the 
still quiet influence of example, moulds the character into 
such a shape, that all the after years of probation, all 
life's storms, all the jar and bustle of business cannot 
change it. It is like a pen of iron and the point of a 
diamond graving on the rock. A child knows well and 
needs no one to tell it, that while words may speak the 
mind's knowledge, actions declare the heart. What a 
man is, is far more than what he says : 

A word " doth never with remorse 

Our minds so deeply move, 
As when another's guiltless life, 

Our error doth reprove." 

Guilt and sin love to quote the failings of a good man, 
a thousand times more than even the eloquent eulogies of 
vice from the lips of a bad one, because more powerful 
and effective. They never exult as they do when they 
see that good man stumble. His fall, is the fall of that 
majestic statue of holy example that has looked upon 
them with a withering frown, and when it lies prostrate 
like the fallen Dagon on the threshold of his own temple, 
mutilated and broken, they regard this misfortune to vir- 
tue as a personal triumph for themselves. That example 
has been to them what the prophet Micaiah was to Ahab, 
and if their lips were bridled, their hearts said as plainly 
as that wicked king, " I hate him, for he prophesieth not 
good of me but evil." Example is indeed a prophet. It 
may even make the devil stand abashed and feel " how 
awful goodness is." Men who are not satisfied with 



326 LIFE LESSONS. 

themselves, who feel that they are doing wrong, seek an 
excuse for themselves in the weakness of another. If a 
good man errs, they deem themselves privileged. They 
will wrap themselves up in the cloak of his failings, and 
so lay the flattering unction to their souls. They could 
not rest content with the principles of a perverted moral- 
ity, with any verbal apology for their sin, however well 
expressed ; they want an example that they can quote. 
Frequently they are only too successful in their search. 
Good men are often weak, and blindly cling to an error 
that thus becomes a stumbling block to others. 

In the early history of the Temperance cause a man 
who had once been addicted to intemperance, rose in a 
temperance meeting and related his experience in regard 
to the influence of temperate drinkers of respectable 
standing upon the habits of the drunkard. 

"Many a time/ 7 said he, "have I gone to Captain 
Johnson's tavern and waited for half an hour, or an hour, 
for some respectable man to come in and go to the bar 
and call for liquor. After a while, Deacon Barnes would 
come and call for some spirit and water. Then I could 
go up to the bar and do as he did." Deacon Barnes 
hearing of this, asked him if it was so. " It is," said 
the man. " Well," said the Deacon, " you shall hang 
on me no longer. I joined the Temperance Society yes- 
terday." " Did you ?" " Yes !" " Well, then I will join 
to-day, for I can do without liquor as long as Deacon 
Barnes can." 

How vain to cherish the hope of being able to de- 
molish the arguments of the Sabbath breaker, of the 
theatre goer, of the intemperate man, of the votary of 
fashion, while they are fortified by the example of those 
who esteem themselves good men, and in some cases pos- 



THE POWER OF EXAMPLE. 327 

sibly are ! Well may we ask, is it not a divine wonder, 
a miracle in attestation of the truth of Christianity, that 
it has maintained itself in the world for eighteen cen- 
turies, and made progress, when domestic traitors have 
so often stabbed at its vitals with poisoned daggers — 
when they have kissed, with the lips of profession, a 
cause they betrayed by example ? 

Let no man then forget in this world the preeminent 
power of example. It is the monarch of human influence. 
It towers high above reason and logic, and all the 
power of words. We may expose a sophistry. We may 
counteract a bribe. We may live down a slander. 
We may show the infidel, that his cause in the light 
of reason is utterly indefensible. But example is too 
much for us. When good men sin we cry out instinc- 
tively, " G-od have mercy on us." 

Let every wise man then beware of evil example. 
The warning is not needless ; the danger is all around 
us. Evil examples abound. You stumble upon them 
at every step. There is not a lie that Satan needs to 
delude souls to perdition that might not be found in 
the actual utterance of some life, in the language of some 
action that is to be witnessed every day all around us. 

But if others do wrong, even by multitudes, is it any 
reason, why you should do so ? Does their sin give you 
authority to disobey God ? What if they are gay ! 
What if they seem to prosper ! What if wit and fashion 
throw a spell of enchantment over their profanity 
or their recklessness ! Will their example take away 
your guilt — will their painted rottenness compensate for 
your casting in your lot with them ? Will it lighten 
that coming hour of reflection, when you stand at the bar 
of your own conscience ? Will it sooth the anguish of a 



328 LIFE LESSONS. 

dying hour ? Will it stand you in stead, when the eye of 
your great judge flashes its lightning through the dark 
secrets of your soul ? 

What if many do sin ; what if the majority do cast 
off the fear of G-od ; what if it is fashionable to travel 
the broad road ; will you therefore be the suicide of 
your soul ? Will fashion take away the sting of the un- 
dying worm ? Will fashion put out the flames of the 
quenchless fire ? Will it be delightful to be damned in 
company ? What if many would laugh at you for being 
odd ; is their ridicule worse than God's frown ? Is your 
own conscience such a torpid thing, that sin may trample 
on it by mere force of numbers ? Are your convictions 
to be voted down by majorities ? Have you enrolled 
yourself in that democracy of darkness, where numbers 
are instead of God ? 

There are good men who err and set a bad example ; 
there are great men whose intellectual eminence flings a 
flood of splendor over the ruinous vices or the contempt- 
ible follies in which they indulge ; there are men whose 
names we would utter with a certain degree of reverence 
against whose example we must put you on your guard ; 
for the splendor of genius cannot atone for its errors, 
and, if it did, good sense should warn you of the pre- 
sumption of supposing that because you have the errors 
you also have the genius. Great men, and even good 
men, have been characterized by gross weakness. They 
have shown themselves unsafe guides. The frailty of 
Solomon is as memorable as his wisdom ; and the same 
pages that record Peter's devoted attachment, tell us 
how he denied his Lord. None of us has any right to 
adopt a human standard. There is an emphatic meaning 
in that declaration of the apostle, that they " who mea- 



THE POWER OF. EXAMPLE. 



3 2 9 



sure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves 
among themselves, are not wise." On the principle that 
another's example may sanction your course, there is no- 
thing left which you may not do. You may quote ex- 
amples for everything. If you wish to join in the gay 
dance, you may find some professedly Christian partner ; 
if you wish to visit the theatre, some renegade Christian 
can show you the way ; if you wish to share the whirl 
of nonsense and vanity, there are Demas-professors in the 
world to keep you in countenance ; if you wish to travel 
on the Sabbath, you may possibly find a seat by the side 
of some one whose duty it has been at some time to en- 
force the commandments ; if the love of the world at- 
tracts you more than the place of prayer, there are cer- 
tainly those who can sympathize with you in your tastes. 
There is scarcely anything you can wish to do but you 
can find a pretext or apology for it in the disgraceful 
failings of such as are presumed to be good men ; but 
shun the principle. There is only one example for you, 
and that is the Master's. The multitude can furnish no 
substitute. A multiplicity of criminals cannot sanctify 
crime ; a host of evil examples cannot change the nature 
of sin. Bear this in mind when you are tempted to go 
with a multitude to do evil. The curse will not be the 
less because they share it. You sin, and you must bear 
it. If you could sin by proxy, you can not be judged 
by proxy. You will stand at the bar of God to answer 
for yourself. Keep, then, one thing your own ; part 
with all else if you please, but be the owner of an inde- 
pendent conscience. Let not your destiny lie at the 
pleasure of your neighbor or the risk of his example. 
You are not called on to gratify him to such an extent 
as to become an outcast from God to keep him company. 



330 LIFE LESSONS. 

Be, moreover, an example yourself. You know the 
power of example. If you have five talents for which 
you are to account, your example is one of them. Whe- 
ther living as you now do, it ought to have any influence 
in the world, is one question ; whether it does, in fact, is 
another, or rather it is no question at all. It does ; it 
must. It is every day and every hour at work, blessing 
or cursing, drawing men toward heaven or toward hell — 
in your family, among your associates, in your daily in- 
tercourse, among all that know you. It is working where 
you are and where you are not ; it is remembered by 
others when it has passed from your own mind ; it is 
multiplying itself, reproducing through others its own 
image ; it is preaching from the pulpit of your life a 
sermon mightier than these poor words. Your children 
hear it, and act upon it ; your impenitent friends and 
associates are confirmed in their sin or alarmed by it. 
Many an eye looks to you to know what you will do and 
how you will live, and the current of your life determines 
that of others. 

If you could once see the power of your example in its 
bearing on the destiny of beings around you for time and 
for eternity, words would not be needed. You would 
be startled at yourself ; you would not dare one hour 
longer to live in such a way as to counteract the truths 
of the Bible in their power on others' minds. Is there 
not something unspeakably terrible in the thought of hav- 
ing come into the world to undo the work for which 
Christ left heaven and sojourned among men ? To throw 
your life into the opposing scale ; to draw men away 
from God, or hold them with you in your sin — it must be 
a strange stupidity that can leave you unconcerned in 
such circumstances as these ! The most trifling acts of 



THE PO WER OF EXAMPLE. 3 3 1 

yours may set an example that may seal the ruin of some 
soul. The Apostle Paul studied to be an example ; and 
it was a noble purpose in him that led him to declare — 
" If meat make my brother to offend, I will not eat meat 
or drink wine while the world standeth, lest I make my 
brother to offend." 

What a blessed treasure for you would be that of holy 
example ; if every one that saw and knew you could say, 
" There is a true Christian •/' how in the obscurest posi- 
tion you would be preaching to the hearts of others, lead- 
ing them to your Saviour and making Him theirs ! Your 
journey through the world would be a path of light, be- 
dewed at every step with tears of grateful joy from the 
eyes of those that rose up to call you blessed ! The 
treasure of a useful life would be stored up for you in 
heaven, and on your track to the spirit-world would fol- 
low those whom your example had attracted, and who 
would join you in the music of the new song. 

But if yours should prove to be an evil example, how 
fearful the reverse ! 

Well might the poet Middleton say — 

" If men of good lives, 
Who, by their virtuous actions, stir up others 
To noble and religious imitation, 
Receive the greater glory after death, 
As sin must needs confess ; what may they feel 
In height of torments and in weight of vengeance — 
Not only they themselves not doing well, 
But set a light up to show men to hell ?" 



XXXXI. 

WEALTH : ITS SOURCE, POWER, DANGERS 
AND DUTIES. 

" It is required in stewards that man be found faithful." — 1 Cor. iv. 2. 

WEALTH, in its original signification, is any 
thing that contributes to the weal or welfare of 
an individual or a community. In the latter case, it is 
the commonwealth, so called. Individual or personal 
wealth is whatever can be made conducive to the weal 
of the individual ; and in its largest signification, em- 
braces physical and mental qualities, so that a man who is 
poor in all else may be rich in mental acquirements, in 
powers of thought, in the means of acquiring and exer- 
cising influence. But in its usual signification, wealth is 
synonymous with property, and means the material pos- 
sessions that a man calls his own, that is, what he 
has received or acquired, and what the law secures 
to him the right to use and employ. It may con- 
sist in money, or houses, or lands, or manufactories — 
fruits of industry, the profits of trade, labor, or genius. 
The sources of wealth are various. Sometimes it is ac- 
quired by inheritance, sometimes by slow and patient in- 
dustry, sometimes by speculation, sometimes by gift or 
donation, but in all cases through the constitution of 
things ordained by God's providence. There could be 

(332) 



WEALTH. 333 

no such thing as wealth, but that God has created its orig- 
inal material, and conferred on man the power to give it 
shape. In making the world, the Great Creator fash- 
ioned it so as to afford the means of industry and enter- 
prise. It is not merely a place where man can idly set 
his foot and stay out his appointed time. 

The materials of wealth everywhere surround us. The 
genial soil, waiting for the seed, gives promise to in- 
dustry of an abundant harvest. The broad prairie in- 
vites the hand of cultivation. The trees of the forest 
need but skillful toil to take the shape of timber, and be 
fashioned into commodious and beautiful dwellings. The 
coal lies buried in the earth, waiting only for the hand 
of labor to bring it forth and give it value. The iron in 
the mine is worthless there, but invites the patience of 
industry to turn it into wealth. Gold is buried in the 
rocks, or mingled with the river's sands, and must be 
sought out and gathered, to become the representative of 
value. And thus all the materials of wealth, and the 
strength and skill also, by which man is able to turn 
them into wealth, are conferred by God. 

The earth is his, from which we draw our sustenance. 
The ocean is his, that we whiten with the sails of com- 
merce. The rivers are his, that float our steam palaces, 
and our ships laden with produce. The mine is his, from 
which we draw the materials of our industry or comfort. 
Our strength to labor, our powers of invention to devise 
the means and implements of labor, the constitution of 
mind and body, by which we can turn every thing to its 
uses, and find enjoyment in them — all are His. He 
opened the fountains, and planted the forests, and reared 
the mountains, and gave the valley its rich and fertile 
soil. His are the flowers of the field and the cattle on a 



334 LIFE LE880N8. 

thousand hills. Enterprise cannot lay its hand upon a sin- 
gle object, that does not declare God to be its proprietor. 

The primary source of wealth, therefore, is to be found 
in the Great Giver, and all the powers of mind and body, 
by which the original elements are transmuted into shape, 
come from the same source. The earth, with all its stores 
of hidden material, is the gift of God to the race. No one 
more than another can claim its unoccupied wastes, ex- 
cept as he improves them for the supply of his own indi- 
vidual wants. No man has an exclusive title deed from 
the Almighty. It is on the ground, therefore, of indefi- 
nite lease, and that not exclusive, that enterprise goes 
forth to claim and take possession of the waste and un- 
cultivated portions of the earth. Here is the origin of 
wealth, and then, with the powers that God has given, 
man cultivates it and gives it a manifold value. The 
plowed land is worth more than the unplowed, the 
harvest field more than the unsown. Labor and skill 
give increased value to the material. The ore is purified 
in the furnace ; the cotton from the field, and the wool 
from the fleece of the sheep, are woven into cloth. The 
forest is cut down and furnishes timber. The fruits and 
productions of one climate transferred to another meet 
a demand that increases their value. Commerce, trans- 
ferring her materials from place to place, and distribut- 
ing them to meet the wants of man, adds to their value, 
and thus wealth is produced. 

The extent to which any man can command the produc- 
tions of skill and industry is the measure of his wealth. 
Yet, usually, it is bestowed on the condition of indi- 
vidual effort. When a man attains it in any other way, it 
is by some exception to the general rule which God has laid 
down. The hereditary transmission of property is not 



WEALTH. 335 

the legitimate way of acquiring it. By mental or bodily 
effort, by " the sweat of the brow," in the expressive lan- 
guage of Scripture, it is properly to be secured. When 
this law is complied with, wealth, is something more than 
a pile of dust, a mere mass of matter, that may be 
conveyed by title deeds and bequests. It is the in- 
dex of individual energy and effort, the sign — not always 
infallible, it is true, from incidental losses or disadvan- 
tages, but yet the general sign — of a man's ability and en- 
terprise. If honestly and fairly acquired, it is the noble 
testimonial of industry — the measure, according to its 
extent, of a man's real capacity. It is true that this 
wealth may in some cases be meanly hoarded up, so that 
the very accumulation of it is a robbery, denying to it the 
use by which it might be multiplied ; but yet, when fairly 
acquired and fairly employed for its legitimate uses, it is 
a sort of index of the man. 

The voice of duty, therefore, while it requires us to re- 
cognize the source of our wealth, and all our titles to it 
in God, bids us, in the right use of our faculties, and with 
true views as to the value of wealth, and the way in 
which it is to be employed, make all we can — not, how- 
ever, overtasking our powers, or interfering with the just 
claims of body and soul upon our time and attention. 
Industry is a Christian duty, and vigor is a divine gift, a 
talent God has given to be employed. The faithful 
use of our powers in their appropriate sphere, multiply- 
ing the conveniences and comforts of life to ourselves 
and others, giving us the means of influence and doing 
good, has the highest sanction of the Word of God. 
With right views and aims, we can be as truly serving 
God and working out the end of our probation in the 
field or in the workshop as when we are found in the 



336 LIFE LE880N8. 

closet or prayer-meeting, giving each, however, its ap- 
propriate place. 

Except as the love of selfish gain interferes, we may 
work for God in seeking to increase the profits of our 
business and multiplying our means to bless the world. 
Let no man say that religion will spoil a business-man, 
even if it does forbid by solemn ordinance all unjust 
gain, the lie, or cheat. It bids us be industrious. " Not 
slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord," — 
such is the Christian's motto. Make all the money you 
can, consistent with honesty and the higher interests of 
yourself and your fellow-man. It is only the right use 
of your talent which enables you to become more exten- 
sively and widely useful. 

The power of wealth for good or evil has passed into 
a proverb. The maxims of the world confess it. One 
of our most eminent poets has said, 

"Plate sin in gold and justice's dart falls hurtless." 

" Why, this will buy your priests and servants from your sides, 

Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads, 

Will knit and break religions, bless the accursed ; 

Make the hoar leprosy adored ; place slaves, 

And give them title, knee and approbation 

With Senators on the bench." 

And another has added : 

"Gold is the strength, the sinews of the world; 
The health, the soul, the beauty most divine ; 
A mask of gold hides all deformities." 

But to curse gold for the evil it does, is like cursing the 
brickbat instead of the man that throws it. The Bible 
does not say money is the root of all evil, but the love of 



WEALTH. 



337 



it. God himself created the elements of wealth and they 
were the main part of that great work of his which he 
surveyed when it was complete, and which he pronounced 
good. Wealth is the implement or result of industry — 
an instrument of influence that has in itself no moral 
character, and can have none apart from the use to which 
it is applied. Without therefore either praising or cursing 
it, we speak of it simply as a thing which the good or 
evil passions of men can employ to produce any desired 
result. And as thus apprehended, its power is vast ; can 
scarcely be overrated. It furnishes the capital of enter- 
prise. It is the talent which industry can put out to 
usury and multiply manifold. In conjunction with human 
energy, its natural ally, it can accomplish wonders. It 
carries forward all the processes of our complicated civil- 
ization. It rears the manufactory, and feeds its spin- 
dles, and turns its wheels. It provides and sustains the 
laboratory of art. It builds the school-house, the college, 
the church. It covers our land with railroads and ca- 
nals, developing new wealth along their track. It tun- 
nels the mountain, and tames the wilderness, and opens 
the forest. It wakes the unbroken solitude with the 
hum of busy industry, and calls up cities and villages on 
the banks of our rivers, and along the shores of our lakes. 
It launches the vessel it has built, and unfurls the sail of 
commerce, and explores the coasts of distant lands. It 
turns the world into a great workhouse of industry, a 
mammoth Crystal Palace, rich with the products of every 
soil and the treasures of every clime. Some few rills of 
its great river, overflowing its banks, run into the channels 
of benevolence, and cheer the arid waste of human misery,, 
sprinkling the broad desert with green oases, or turning the 
wheels of hallowed enterprise, and working the machinery 
15 



338 LIFE LESSONS. 

that floods the world with tracts and Bibles. And beside 
this, what motives it presents, tempting to the highest 
achievements of effort and of daring. The hope of it 
starts indolence from repose, and rouses to effort. Its 
power is felt in the importer's counting-room, and in the 
humblest hamlet of the land. It sends out the fleet ships 
on their perilous voyage ; it explores unknown routes 
marked by hazard and danger, and at the same time car- 
ries on the whole mechanism of common daily industry. 
To gain it, labor toils, art invents, genius soars, study 
gathers up her intellectual treasures. Lured by this bait, 
cupidity breaks over the restraints of honesty and the 
laws of God ; avarice hoards the memorials of its own 
cursed selfishness ; desperation no longer pauses on the 
brink of crime, but dashes over the gulf. Public justice 
is corrupted, and becomes rather public wrong ; a 
bribe blinds the eye and perverts the judgment ; a bribe 
changes the channel and current of legislation. In one 
form or another, wealth is interfering with the whole 
course and order of society. It erects a charitable in- 
stitution, or sets up a grogshop. It blesses a poor fam- 
ily with needed comforts, or spurs on extortion to wring 
away their last crust. It gives an impulse to benevolent 
enterprise, or becomes the tool of conspirators and vil- 
lains. The robber on the highway dares death for it. 
The false swearer perjures himself to attain it. The spec- 
ulator risks all that he has, that he may attain more. 

And what power it gives to individual influence and 
opinion ! The fashion that wealth adopts and sanctions 
has immediate and unquestioned currency. Unjust as it 
may seem, society, in its present state of human apostacy 
is so constituted that gold is often mightier than reason. 
It gives a sort of authoritative imprimatur to a current 



WEALTH. 339 

notion. It only needs to be known that wealth adopts 
it to supply its lack of sense, or cover up its absurdity. 
And this power may be used for good as well as for evil. 
It may be employed on the side of truth, and to wipe off 
the shame that the world would cast on the principles of 
a pure morality, or of non-conformity to its false stand- 
ards. Wealth furnishes a pedestal, on which the statue 
of a good example, and of just principles may be set up 
and made nobly conspicuous or even impressive. In fact, 
its power is such through society and the world, that it 
can scarcely be overrated. 

But with the power are connected also the dangers and 
responsibilities of wealth. These are classed together, be- 
cause the dangers flow from a neglect of responsibility ; use 
this powerful talent or means of influence aright, and the 
dangers are few ; neglect it, and they are vast and mani- 
fold. The very dangers, therefore, enforce the conclu- 
sion drawn from a consideration of the power and influ- 
ence of wealth — a power and influence which of them- 
selves imply responsibility. 

The dangers of wealth flow mainly from those views 
of it which allow of its abuse. Seek it for its own sake, 
and it is a curse. The love of money then appears, as it 
is, the root of all evil. It lures a man to danger and to 
crime. Seek wealth as a means of doing good, that you 
may serve God and bless the world with it, and there is 
little temptation to transgress in its pursuit the rules of 
strict honesty and virtue. Seek it as a means of selfish 
gratification, as a source of luxury, or a ground of pride, 
and it is a snare. You are tempted to disregard the 
[ obstacles which justice and morality throw in the way 
of its pursuit. Then it leads to falsehood, to dishonesty, 
to crime. It tempts you to forget a higher object in one 



340 LIFE LESSONS. 

lower and incidental. It exalts one that should always 
be kept secondary to the importance of a primary. It 
destroys the natural and just relations which it should 
ever be made to sustain to other objects. A man whose 
main and ruling purpose is to make money, degrades 
himself from a man to a thing. So far as he can, he makes 
a machine of himself, the whole scope of which is no 
higher than that of the die of the mint. He rises just to 
the dignity of a gold washer or sieve, or rather sinks to 
that zero of the moral thermometer. The tendency of 
his course is just to place him on a level with the tools 
he uses, or the engine that drives his machinery. He is 
merely the calculating, ciphering, directing furniture of 
his establishment. He might almost as well give up all 
claims and titles to his humanity. He would no more be 
missed, so far as moral worth is concerned, in the com- 
munity, than his workshop or his engines. The love of 
money, creeping into the heart, eats out with poisonous 
tooth all the human that is there. 

But we should not overlook the result of the tempta- 
tions to crime to which the love of money renders one 
so susceptible. As this passion prevails, it invites to all 
various forms of injustice and extortion. A man absorbed 
in prospects of gain, ventures on doubtful methods, 
indulges in questionable practices. He is entangled, 
snared, involved in the meshes of his own dishonest 
schemes, and becomes their victim. He lives a knave, 
and dies a fool, and is adjudged accursed. 

There are dangers, too, arising also from the possession 
of wealth. If suddenly acquired, it has a strange ten- 
dency to make a man's head dizzy, or his neck stiff, or 
his heart cold and hard. Sometimes he does not know 
what to do with it, and so becomes a spendthrift and 






WEALTH. 



341 



makes it a means of expediting the catastrophe of a 
career of luxury and sin. 

But however acquired, if it is not held and kept as a 
solemn trust in stewardship for God, it tends to attract 
the heart, and hold it fast to itself. It narrows the range 
of sympathy ; it tempts one to treat his poorer neighbor 
with scorn and neglect. It leads him to exalt pride 
above humanity. He is in danger of forgetting whence 
his affluence came, who gave it, and who continues it, and 
who can make it worthless in a moment. He is in dan- 
ger of forgetting God in the idolatry of his wealth ; of 
counting himself, with the resources at his command, in- 
dependent of the great Giver ; of living to enjoy his 
money rather than employ it for God. There is danger 
of its becoming his greatest curse — its very touch infect- 
ing his soul with a kind of leprosy — his grasp upon it 
leading him to neglect to seize upon what is infinitely 
more important. There is danger of his regarding it as 
his own, exclusive of the claims of God, and employing 
it as an instrument of luxury and pride, building and 
furnishing himself a heaven with it here, to the neglect 
of a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 

In some cases wealth leads to dissipation. If the 
father of the household escapes, his children often in- 
herit the curse. They grow up with the idea that they 
were not born to work and earn their bread by the 
sweat of their brow. _Every wish must be gratified. 
Pride and fashion have all their thoughts. They are 
indulged with all that wealth can purchase, and before 
they are men or women they have acquired habits of 
expenditure that utterly unfit them to take care of 
themselves. You see them incarnations of vanity, worth- 
less for any useful service — their minds perhaps uncul- 



342 LIFE LESSONS. 

tured, their hearts perverted, their views of life ruin- 
ously absurd. The chances of the future are decidedly 
against them. You can almost see the inscription, " a 
human wreck," written upon their forehead now. Their 
place of destination is already dimly visible amid the 
foam-crested breakers that line the shores of life. 

All these dangers, and others that might be cited, give 
double force to the lessons of responsibility in the pursuit 
and use of wealth. It is to be sought and employed as a 
talent from God for which we are solemnly accountable. 
The language of Scripture on this subject is fearfully 
impressive. We have already seen — in considering the 
source of wealth — that it comes from God. We improve 
it and add to its value, just as we do to the powers of 
the mind, by cultivation. Our wealth is no more ours in 
the absolute sense, than the faculties of the mind are. 
God has a property in both which he has not relin- 
quished, which he cannot relinquish, and for which he 
will call us to account. 

How absurd would the pretensions of that man seem, 
who should claim that his tongue was his own, and he 
might speak what he chose ; that his pen was his own, 
and he might write what he chose ; that his faculties 
were his own, and he might employ them as he chose ! 
The assumption would be absurd. It would open the 
door to universal license. There is a higher law that 
regulates all these things. What an ineffacable stamp 
of reprobation all our better feelings would set upon that 
man who should employ great and splendid abilities to 
build up some scheme of selfish aggrandizement, using 
his superior talent to malign virtue, or gild vice, or se- 
duce the inexperienced into the paths of sin ! We should 
feel that no language could furnish a strain of condem- 



WEALTH. 



343 



nation severe enough to visit his fault. And yet, accord- 
ing to the measure of its influence, wealth is subject to 
the same law of accountability. Just so far as it sanc- 
tions unworthy practices, or says by act or show that 
worldly gratification is the chief thing, or lays its tribute 
on the altar of luxury and pride, just so far it " plates 
sin with gold/' and paints a demon as an angel. 

Even if we are so disposed, we cannot stop short of 
the great Scripture rule of obligation reaching to the 
use of every thing that can extend or multiply our influ- 
ence. Our wealth, like our power of speech, is a sacred 
deposit, and if for every idle word that men speak they 
shall give account in the day of judgment — so also for 
every dollar, for every cent that they mispend or employ 
for an unhallowed purpose. The wealth that is wasted 
in extravagant display is a talent buried in the earth, or 
worse than this — given over to the devil. The gorgeous- 
ness of dress that feeds your pride, is just so much of the 
means God lent you to see how you would use them for 
Him, flung down to those passions that feed upon them 
now, but at last will feed upon you. 

The great question for us to ask in the use of our 
means, is not, How can I gratify myself in the expendi- 
ture ; but, How can I best employ them in serving God ? 
They are His — entrusted for a while to me — but soon to 
be called back. He tells me, as a steward for Him, to lay 
out the portion committed to me in the way in which it 
will do the most good, in which it will glorify Him 
most. All selfish considerations disappear at once. I 
am to act as God's hand, paying out for Him, investing 
for Him, receiving for Him, and using for myself just 
what will best fit me to serve Him. 

I need not say that this is a high standard, but to your 



344 



LIFE LESSORS. 



conscience I leave it, whether it be not the true one. 
With the Bible before me, I can discover no other. With 
eternity in view, I think it would be folly supreme to 
adopt any other. You are to consider, and by solemn 
vow you are bound to consider, how you may contribute 
to carry out the scheme of Christ in regard to a dying 
world, and all the means of influence at your command 
are called into requisition. Bought yourself at a price 
which no gold or silver can be employed to compute, you 
owe all that you are as a ransomed captive, and all that 
you hope to be as one of the redeemed in glory, to that 
love that was manifested in the cross of Christ. The 
claims of God, as Creator and Preserver, are, as it were, 
reinforced by the demands of atoning blood, and their 
justice has been acknowledged by you before the world, 
with God, angels, and men as your witnesses. Whatever 
you can do to promote the most sacred of all causes, to 
limit the empire of sin, to spread the Gospel of the Son 
of God, to dry the tears of the mourner, to scatter happi- 
ness around your path, or send it like the sunlight to the 
humblest home and the most benighted heart, to bring 
the dying to the fountain of life and draw them on with 
you to heaven, all this you are bound to do, counting it a 
privilege as well as a solemn duty. And by all the means 
which God has entrusted to your charge, you are bound 
to do it. If God has given you wealth, that is a talent. 
You may by a hallowed purpose make it a powerful in- 
strument of good. It may speak for you, toil for you, be 
a missionary for you, or rather for Christ. It may teach 
the ignorant, reform the degraded, sustain the claims of 
Christian charity, give a new impulse to benevolent en- 
terprise, and raise up multitudes who shall bless God 
through you. 



WEALTH. 



345 



Suppose for a moment, that with abundant means at 
your command, you resolve to use them as it seems to 
you Christ would have them used — as you would choose 
to use them if Christ was walking by your side, and day 
by day sitting down with you at table, or conversing 
with you by the way ! Suppose your highest ambition — ■ 
as strong and earnest as that of the aspirant to wealth 
and fortune — was just to accomplish the most good pos- 
sible with the means at your command : the largest re- 
sults of glory to God, and beneficence to man ! Is that 
an incredible supposition? Why should it be so regarded? 
Is it fanatic or absurd to live by a rule which you ac- 
knowledge obligatory ? Be wise and do it. 

Then, though you live in a world that sin has cursed, 
there will bloom all around your path an Eden only less 
lovely than our lost inheritance. Its fragrance will sur- 
round you with the breath of heaven, and when called 
home at last, of you it may be said, " Blessed are the dead 
that die in the Lord ; yea, saith the Spirit, for they rest 
from their labors, and their works do follow them." 



15^ 



XXXVII. 

POWER OF ASSOCIATION ; 

OR, 

ON PITCHING ONE'S TENT TOWARD SODOM. 

" And Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom." — Gen. xiii. 12. 

THE power of evil association is well illustrated by 
a short chapter in the history of Lot. We are 
told that " he pitched his tent toward Sodom." These 
words possess great significance, and excite deep interest 
when taken in connection with Lot's subsequent experi- 
ence. Up to this time he had been in company with 
Abraham his uncle. They had dwelt together, and 
herded their flocks in the same pastures. But a strife 
arose between their herdsmen, and in order to avoid all 
occasion for it in future, they separated. Abraham gave 
Lot his choice of location, from the whole land before 
him, saying, " if thou will take the left hand, then I will 
go to the right ; or if thou depart to the right hand, then 
I will go to the left." The result was as is stated, and 
this in spite of the fact put on record with it, that " the 
men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord 
exceedingly.' 7 From this hour the life of Lot becomes 
sadly clouded with disaster and gloom. The storm did 
not, indeed, come down at once, but an observant eye 

(346) 






POWER OF ASSOCIATION. 34.7 

might have seen its threatening masses piled up and 
darkening in the distance, and casting their sombre 
shadow over all his prosperity. The rich and well- 
watered pastures, the flourishing condition of his flocks 
and herds, the respect which his growing wealth and 
prosperity secured for him at present, might lead him to 
to forget or neglect the question of a holy life, and the 
favor of God might even dazzle him blind to the coining 
danger ; but on the wings of the wind the vengeance 
he challenged was hastening, and, though delayed, it 
was sure to come. It overtook him in the very scenes 
of his prosperity, and from its fiery deluge he scarcely 
escaped, thenceforth a poor, bereaved, desolate, old man, 
the victim, till he dies, of the social corruption with 
which his family had become contaminated in Sodom. 

This brief history throws around the language, " he 
pitched his tent toward Sodom/ 7 a meaning of fearful and 
momentous interest. Here was that passage in his life 
which was ominous of all his future disaster ; which was, 
in fact, its procuring cause. 

But the history of Lot has the force of parable. To 
many a man it has all the significance of a personal appli- 
cation. It reads like the parable of the Prophet Nathan 
to the guilty King of Israel, which closed with that home- 
thrust, " Thou art the man.' 7 Of how many may the 
recording angel be even now writing that chapter in 
their history, which may be summed up in the short para- 
graph, " he pitched his tent toward Sodom. 77 

Consider, first, the meaning of the words. In the 
case of Lot they had a meaning of great weight, a 
meaning that is not comprehended merely by the sight 
of moving tents and a change of location. The men that 
Lot employed to move his cords, and stakes, an 1 sheep- 



348 LIFE LESSONS. 

skin tent-cloths, had, perhaps, no conception of what it 
meant to " pitch the tent toward Sodom/' as they were 
ordered to do. They saw nothing in it but the securing 
a more advantageous locality, a more beautiful country, a 
richer pasturage, and fatter flocks. Perhaps Lot saw 
nothing more. It may be that increased ease and pros- 
perity and worldly comfort blinded him to every other 
result. He may have looked on the Sodom neighborhood 
as something of a drawback on his location, and yet 
have been inclined to think that, perhaps, after all, those 
neighbors were a well-meaning people, only somewhat 
too indulgent in their gaiety ; a little too extravagant in 
dancing and night revels, balls, and routs. He might 
have considered these as a very pardonable result of 
their superfluous wealth — that carving and gilding of 
social intercourse which bespeak the perfection of gentil- 
ity, and are almost necessary to take off that roughness 
and boorishness of manner which, in some circles, are 
" the unpardonable sin." And even if in some cases these 
things were carried too far, what harm could it do him, 
a man of fixed and religious principle, far above the 
reach of any such perverting influence ; and as to his 
family, he could see that they were kept under proper 
restraint, and formed no bad acquaintanceships or asso- 
ciations. It is barely possible that on their account he 
was the more willing to reside in the neighborhood, for, 
as a rich man, he would rank high among the aristocracy 
of Sodom, at least if he was not too puritanic in his 
way, and his children might move there in the very 
highest circles, and ally themselves to the wealthiest and 
most fashionable families in the place. 

If any of these were the views of Lot, which is cer- 
tainly more than possible, he had not himself any proper 



PO WEE OF ASSO CIA TIOK 349 

sense of the meaning of that thing — " pitching his tent 
toward Sodom." It was, in fact, pitching into tempta- 
tion ; it was rashly braving the lion in his den ; it was 
balancing an uncertain worldly good against an almost 
certain spiritual loss ; it was venturing on a slippery 
path where nine out of every ten that attempt it, fall and 
perish, or are, at least, crippled for life. To go near 
Sodom was to venture near a maelstrom with the almost 
inevitable danger of being drawn in. To pitch his tent 
there was to make the danger perpetual. 

But though ancient Sodom was burned, there are other 
Sodoms still, though known by other names. God 
poured out his deluge of fire and burnt every trace of 
the cities of the plain off from the planet, so that where 
they stood nothing is left but salt deserts and bituminous 
lakes ; still their type of corrupt human nature is not ex- 
tinct. An English statesman has said, " Every man has 
his price." There is no little truth as well as some 
slander in this. But it is true that every man has his 
Sodom, his peculiar temptation. There is some sin to 
which he is drawn by, perhaps, a golden bait ; some as- 
sociation, or friendship, or intercourse which corrupts 
or perverts the mind, or chills its religious ardor. It 
will be difficult to find any society which has not one or 
more of these Sodoms in it. Perhaps it is some select 
circle of wealth or fashion, where holy thoughts, like the 
angels of God in the city of the plain, are persecuted and 
outraged ; perhaps it is some clique of youth who are 
madly bent on fun and frolic, and fling ridicule and 
contempt on holy things. Possibly it is a band of veteran 
revelers, a company of hardened and dissipated men, 
whose jovial manners cover, like the lie on a gilt label, 
the most poisonous drugs within. Or it may be that the 



350 LIFE LESSONS. 

Sodom is a more ideal thing, the gaining some prize of 
pleasure or ambition, by which the soul is risked — a 
Sodom that a man might hang up in his shop window, or 
fold as a bank-note in his pocket-book — a sort of abstract 
Sodom — a corporation seal that carries all the authority 
and force of the city itself. 

A man that journeys on a score or two of years in 
the world, will pass many of these Sodoms, these gilded 
homes and haunts and associations and symbols of iniquity. 
And he pitches his tent near them, when he comes within 
their iDfluence. If he is ever saved it will be as Lot was, 
" so as by fire." He has put his foot in the trap, and if 
he ever takes it out, it may be not as it went in. 

It is a most startling description of a dangerous phase 
in a man's life, when it can be said of him he has " pitched 
his tent toward Sodom." Then he has begun to yield, 
and he will find it ever harder and harder work to resist. 
He has come into the neighborhood of evil influences 
from which there is a strong improbability that he will 
ever break away. He is looking in the direction of a 
worldly and selfish gratification, and the object will rivet 
his gaze, like the fabled eye of the basilisk, till he 
becomes its victim. 

But what reasons are there for men to pursue so fatal 
a course ? 

If you ask what sufficient and justifying reasons there 
are, I answer, None ! There is nothing — not the largest 
bribe, not the mines and treasures of the world, not a 
title-deed to Sodom or this great globe itself, that is any 
equivalent for such a sin, or can be a reason for it. Sin 
is unreason, it is folly and madness in every shape you 
can put it. The hope of gain tempting a man to pass 



PO WER OF ASS CIA TION. 3 5 1 

the line of duty or the rule of conscience one hair's 
breadth, is the venture of a soul. The wisdom of sin is 
always and forever the wisdom of Judas, selling his Lord 
and master for thirty pieces of silver. It is the same 
kind of business. 

But if you ask what reasons the mind considers, or 
what the motives are which it views as reasons — -we may 
find an answer by analyzing Lot's experience. Unques- 
tionably in his case it was mainly the hope of gain. He 
saw the country fertile and well watered and abundantly 
productive, and he supposed that his flocks and herds 
would thrive there. It seems reasonable to suppose that 
he was a man of a good degree of enterprise and fore- 
sight — knew as we would express it now, how to make 
money, and he determined he would, A fat ox or sheep 
was current coin in traffic then — when mints were more 
difficult to be procured than they are even in these days — 
and a large flock of such, was worth as much as heavy 
bank deposits now. It is plain then that his main object 
was to do a good business, as we would say. Every other 
consideration is inferior and subordinate to this. He does 
not pause to consider how much such society as he would 
be thrown into ought to reduce the estimate of his profits ; 
he does not ask how much will this eager haste to be rich 
interfere with present duty or future peace ; he does not 
consider the trouble and temptation and vexation that will 
beset him in consequence of having to be thrown in 
among such a set of vile or wicked men— or if he does, 
these matters are lightly passed over, and he commits that 
great mistake which many have made since his day of 
reckoning his clear profits by what is equivalent to a 
cash or stock account at the end of the month or year, 
lie does not appear to have considered the question, 



352 LIFE LESSONS. 

What would God have me do ? It was a matter not of 
prayer or religion or duty, but of the pocket. He turned 
himself for the time being into a money-making machine, 
tasked to the largest returns, and the result is as we 
might expect — " He pitched his tent toward Sodom." 

We shall find Lot's experience a prototype. The grand 
reason why men are drawn into sin, or at least into irre- 
ligious and worldly company till they become Sodomized 
in hardness of heart, is in very many cases, the purpose 
of making money. What friendships and partnerships 
money makes ! What crimes it glosses over, what mean- 
ness it covers, what infamy it hides ! Men will take off 
their hats and make obeisance to a worm that crawls in 
gold. They will take a human being into their company 
and their friendship, because his rottenness, which they 
know full well, is plastered over by the reputation of being 
rich. They will handle pitch if it is only in a silver 
vase not entirely smeared over — if there is a place for 
the fingers to touch the silver. And so in business 
transactions, character is a subordinate thing. They 
want a man with them who can help the firm and bring 
in round profits, whether by lies or truth. A man goes 
often into a business not because it is one of general 
utility, not because it is fair and honest, but because it 
will make him rich as Sodom, perhaps as wicked too. He 
will walk deliberately through all the labyrinths of 
fraud, and even if he scruples at its stratagems, will pass 
them over in silence, for his partner or his accomplice 
bears the blame, while he only helps him wear the wedges 
of gold and the goodly Babylonish garments. 

And if these things are so, can we wonder that good 
men often forget their religion while they hurry on to 
make money ? They pitch their tents near Sodom with- 



POWER OF ASSOCIATION. 



353 



out knowing the character of the place — except that a 
heavy business is clone there. They leave the Abrahams, 
the praying men, and mix themselves up with those that 
worship the dollar — the Judases, and Demases, and Ba- 
laams — whom they will soon resemble. Their fami- 
lies are becoming naturalized Sodomites, and they are, 
perhaps, coining the eternal hopes and welfare of their 
children into the wealth and fortune which they mean to 
leave them when they die. 

But the love of money does not stand alone among the 
motives that blind the reason of men and lead them into 
bad company and a worldly life. They like the gay life 
and tone that prevails in the scenes which represent to- 
day the ancient Sodom. And what those scenes are you 
may easily imagine. If I was to picture them out before 
you, sketching them by the features of their prototype of 
the plain, I should use the smoothest brush and the fair- 
est colors. I should not select their original at that hour 
when the flaming vengeance of heaven is making the 
dwellings of their pride fiery tombs. I should not wait 
for the wicked city to take its attitude before me, when 
its affrighted inhabitants are rushing with mad, wild 
haste from the scenes of their revelry to some spot that 
might serve as a refuge from this terrible tempest of 
death. This should be left far, far and dim, in the back- 
ground. I would select that hour when the morning sun 
clothed every object in the glow of beauty and of prom- 
ise • when the whole landscape smiled in the robes that 
God had woven for it with his own infinite skill ; when the 
laugh, and the jest, and the merry greeting went round, 
and there was no cloud upon the brow and no burden on 
the heart. The Sodoms of our day have the fascination 
as well as venom of the Serpent. You may find them in 



354 LIFE LESSONS. 

scenes of festive mirth, in the gay saloon with its bril- 
liant lights flashing enchantment over their beauty, in 
the thoughtless crowds that follow the rounds of fashion 
and of pleasure ; in halls where no Egyptian death's head 
grins its ghastly smile, and no stern censor sits with 
frowning brow ; where every object contributes its por- 
tion to rob life of every thing sad or gloomy, and even 
throw a spell over the thought of the grave, to keep it 
down while vanity and sin trip on with the winged hours. 
And it might not be amiss that music and poetry should 
be there and lend their charms to those of the sparkling 
bowl, while wit in all its brilliancy, and humor in all its 
sportiveness gave tone to mirth that needed these alone 
to finish out the picture with all its coloring. 

I do not say that all these elements are necessary, but 
let them, or any part of them, be allied to irreligion, or 
even be divorced, as in most cases they must be, from 
piety, and they make that Sodom, over which, as yet, no 
fiery tempest hangs. And who knows not the motives 
that impel to such a scene ; the native restlessness of the 
mind panting after satisfaction ; that thirst for happiness 
that should lead us to the living fountain, but oftenest 
stops at the mudded pool ; that youthful ardor, whose 
beating pulse asks the stimulus of folly to make it throb 
even to aching, and that ambition which seeks such 
scenes for a theatre on which to shine. And yet that 
theatre is a Sodom. Far away in the background the 
curling mists are wreathing terrors about the brow of 
the storm, and now and then the lightning is gleaming 
forth like a flash from the eye of an angry God. Higher 
rises the cloud, darkening with wrath, till the roaring 
torrent breaks upon the startled citizen and hems him 
round with its fiery flood. Then you see him like a man 



POWER OF ASSOCIATION. 355 

reading the letter that warned him of the incendiary, by 
the light of his burning dwelling — confessing the folly of 
those reasons for which he suffered himself to be drawn 
into the snare. 

But how is it that a man can be said to " pitch his tent 
toward Sodom ?" I answer, by taking his course in that 
direction which will throw him into vain and worldly 
company. 

When I see a youth neglecting to form steady habits, 
inconstant and fickle, ready to become the victim of the 
first temptation that crosses his path, I think there is a 
man who will soon "pitch his tent toward Sodom." 
When I see another neglecting the sanctuary and dese- 
crating the Sabbath by loitering about here and there, 
or reading all the stray things that come to hand with- 
out regard to their character — there is a man of whom I 
feel sure that his tent has been already " pitched toward 
Sodom." When I see any one more anxious about the 
fashions and modes of the day than about questions of 
duty, more concerned to appear well in the eyes of the 
world than beneath the eye of God, I recognize there one 
who has pitched his tent so near to Sodom, that he is 
aping its manners and enslaving himself to its customs. 
When I see a man neglecting the company of the thought- 
ful and discreet, associating with those whose shallow- 
ness of brain is made more intensely shallow by their 
folly, I ask how far can that man's tent be from the very 
ivalls of Sodom. When I see a man so intent on busi- 
ness that in his love of gain he shows no interest or 
anxiety to meet where Christians love to pray, and even 
feels a stranger when he comes, I fear that man has too 
plainly pitched his tent toivard Sodom. When I meet 
with one who puts off religious duty for the present that 



356 LIFE LESSONS. 

he may enjoy the world in all its gaiety and pleasure, I 
feel like whispering in his ear, You have pitched your 
tent toward Sodom. When I find a man cherishing the 
acquaintance of some fascinating and engaging yet un- 
principled companion, I think within myself, would that 
some one as with the archangel's trump would blow the 
blast of warning, " You have pitched your tent toward 
Sodom." 

Whenever you suffer yourself to come within the reach 
or sphere of any influence that makes you less conscien- 
tious, less devoted, less prayerful, it is a sign that you are 
pitching your tent on the plain of Sodom. Whenever 
you suffer yourself to be drawn off into plans and specu- 
lations that make you love the world more and the Sa- 
viour less, you may know that you are busy removing 
your tent and pitching it toward Sodom. When you 
find that the sober pleasures of religion must be spiced 
by some new ingredient from the world to give them rel- 
ish, you may know that your tent is pitched where you 
already hreathe the air of Sodom. When your anxieties 
are manifestly greater to get rich and multiply your 
hoards on earth than lay up treasures in heaven, it might 
be well to ask yourself if your tent is not already pitched 
toward Sodom. A man may think he is on perfectly 
safe ground, may compliment himself on the fairness of 
his Christian profession, while yet in fact his tent is 
pitched toward Sodom. He may see every thing around 
him bright and prosperous and promising, so that he 
almost thinks he is in a paradise, but he should remember 
that Sodom once was " like the garden of the Lord." A 
man may spend his thoughts on a fine location for his 
house, a good prospect, and handsome grounds, and when 
all is complete he may find too late that he has only been 



POWER OF ASSOCIATION. 357 

pitching his tent toward Sodom. A man may be anxious 
to get established in some business, and he may be so 
eager in his plans, so forward to execute them, that over- 
looking the question of their utility or morality, he shall 
pitch his tent toward Sodom. The director of a railroad 
company may have invested his funds so largely in a 
Sunday-breakiug concern, that his anxiety for the per- 
centage silences his remonstrance at the sacrilege of mur- 
dering that holy day under the iron wheels, and he finds 
that he oelongs to a Sodom corporation. A man led by 
curiosity or pleasure enters the cars on the Sabbath, to 
be transported to some distant scene, perhaps of folly, 
perhaps of worship, but he often neglects to ask, is this 
the place for any but the inhabitants of Sodom f A 
man eager in regard to political interests yields to the 
current around him, and becomes mixed up in its turbid 
whirl, till he seems like one of the lot — a mere intriguer, 
a white-washed wire-puller, and even then is not aware 
how near he has pitched his tent toward Sodom. 

But to show how men do this would be to recite all 
the brilliant or gainful iniquity of the world. It is done 
almost every day before our eyes. It is no laborious 
operation, no groaning task. It is a mere operation of 
the will, a choice, that has such power that it takes a 
man's soul, and removes it in the twinkling of an eye, a 
thousand miles from heaven, into the immediate neigh- 
borhood of Sodom. It is thus the spirit of a man is 
borne on the lightning wing of a wish with all its hopes 
and passions from light into darkness, from Abraham's 
bosom to the company of Sodom. Your choice does this, 
a fleet fugitive volition of the soul. You are doing it 
when you indulge foolish thoughts and fancies ; you are 
doing it when you suffer yourself to read with admiration 



358 LIFE LE880N8. 

the deeds of a splendid villain or a wholesale murderer 
like Napoleon. You are doing it when you suffer novels 
and romances to transport you even for a few hours into 
the company of Sodomites, who will almost inevitably 
draw you nearer to themselves. You are doing it when 
you suffer the glitter of gold to seduce you from the 
search after the priceless pearl of truth and of religion. 
You are doing it when you suffer your mind to become 
so engrossed with the things of time and sense as to neg- 
lect to prepare for eternity. You are doing it when 
you suffer yourself to be drawn into conformity with the 
vain pleasures and fashions of the world. You are doing 
it when you neglect prayer, and the Bible, and the sanc- 
tuary, and the Sabbath. You are doing it, perhaps, when 
you are doing nothing else, and think you are doing 
nothing at all, for one of the sins of Sodom was " idleness." 

But an equally momentous question yet remains. What 
will be the result of all this ? 

I answer, perhaps increased worldly prosperity for a 
while. This is not absolutely certain, but oftentimes it 
is the case. Doubtless it was with Lot, or he never would 
have remained in the neighborhood so many years as he 
did. His flocks and herds throve and increased. The 
rich and fertile and well-watered soil furnished him an 
abundant pasturage, and the city of Sodom was at hand 
as a good market. He must have felt convinced that he 
was doing a good business, although we can see now that 
his gains were a curse, the bait of that great man-hunter 
Satan, and Lot was decoyed into his trap, with all his 
family, and some of them could not get out. But for a 
time he evidently prospered. It may be that he congrat- 
ulated himself many times that he quitted the company 
of his too Puritanic uncle who had scrupled, up to the 



POWER OF ASSOCIATION. 359 

time of their separation, to avail himself of the advan- 
tages of that neighborhood. And Lot's condition in this 
respect may be a type of many others. Some men make 
themselves rich, as they think, much more rapidly by 
knavery and fraud and meanness. Religion stands in 
their way and they discard it. Morality interferes with 
a profitable lie, and is cast out of the firm. It is more 
than possible that things go as they wish. Their gains 
count up. They make large dividends. They can afford 
a greater degree of splendor. They can serve mammon 
in a princely style with his own bribes. Their houses 
are furnished like a palace. They can procure the most 
costly fabrics. They can lead the fashion. They can 
compete with the aristocracy of Sodom. So far the par- 
allel of their condition with Lot's is kept up as it respects 
prosperity. 

But perhaps there is a further parallel in the history 
of their family. The minds of children, in the atmosphere 
of such a home as theirs will be, drink in poison from the 
first breath of intelligence. The neighborhood and the 
associations are all Sodom-like. Wealth is the house- 
hold God, and they are idolaters long before they know 
of any other worship. They come in contact only with 
scenes that corrupt and pervert. On the upper strata of 
society, when they move, float like foam on a stream, the 
lightest materials. Their minds become mere air bubbles, 
blown up with pride ; and when mixed with the foam 
around them, dissolvable into less than a drop of good 
sense. It will be a remarkable escape if they pass the 
rapids of youth without being tossed to fragments or scat- 
tered in froth and foam. It is possible they may fall into 
some eddy where they will revolve and revolve till they 
are lost in the mass of drifting dust and straws that cir- 



360 LIFE LESSONS. 

cle around them. Many a parent lias enriched his chil- 
dren to destroy them. He has given them wealth as 
Naaman gave it to Gehazi, and a leprosy with it. In 
giving them facilities for moving in the circles of wealth 
and fashion, he has helped them to ally themselves with 
the sons and daughters of Sodom. They have grown up 
to be his grief, and to bring down his gray hairs with 
sorrow to the grave. His ill-gotten wealth, his gold and 
silver denied to the service of Him for whom he should 
have been a steward, have cankered in his hand and 
eaten his flesh as it were fire. And the prophecy has 
been fulfilled in those that are bone of his bone and flesh 
of his flesh. 

Another result of pitching one's tent toward Sodom 
will be a growing disposition to tolerate its sin. Some 
men call this liberality. I call it atheistic indifference. 
It is almost a certain result of mixing with vile men or 
having any thing to do with the unprincipled and immoral 
that we become, almost unconsciously, their apologists. 
Their enormities, their sacrilege and blasphemy, their 
profanity and obscenity, their excesses and follies, excite 
less and less repugnance. We are not horrified as we 
were once at them. Our own feelings and character 
have undergone a wondrous change. Virtue has gone 
out of us, not to come back again. Conscience is less 
strict. Sin is less criminal. Truth and justice are less 
sacred. We are ready to relax even the severity of 
God, and become Universalists, as I suppose the inhabi- 
tants of Sodom were, almost to a man. 

Another result that follows, if it does not accompany, 
the one just specified, is a disbelief in the judgments of 
God. When there ceases to be in our minds any vivid 
distinction between righteousness and sin, we shall see 



POWER OF ASSOCIATION. 361 

but little need of a judgment. A man who associates 
with unprincipled and worldly-minded men will see them 
acting every day without any regard to that distinction. 
A crime is with them, as with Napoleon, inferior to a 
blunder. No sin is so great as the loss of a good bar* 
gain ; no virtue half so meritorious as a faculty of making 
money. It is this, according to their Gospel of Mammon, 
and not charity, which covers a multitude of sins. Such 
society as theirs is eminently corrupting. The atmos- 
phere they breathe is the chloroform of morals. Without 
pain, and before we are aware, it deadens sensibility, if 
not life, and recovery is rare. We begin to cast off the 
awful sense of a just and holy God. We begin to be- 
lieve He cannot be present ; never interfering, where the 
principles of truth and justice are weighed in the same 
scales with cotton ; where princely villains play the part 
of Dives, where the plains of Sodom are like the garden 
of the Lord. Thus we cease to dread either present 
judgment or a judgment to come. We slumber on in 
perfect security. Every thing is fair and full of promise. 
We dread no terrible reverse. We sleep as quietly as 
Sodom in the days of her guilt, before that terrible morn- 
ing broke whose early hours were to see her entombed 
in fire. 

And when the fear of God is gone, where and what is 
man? A blazing world broke loose from its central 
orb ; a madman escaped from his cell ; a being you can 
neither trust nor control! Destroy that fear in your 
mind, and you may go on in deeds of desperation that 
will rival the guilt of ancient Sodom. There is nothing 
to bound the audacity of your desperation when tempta- 
tion calls. 

There is but one step more to the climax of the result. 
16 



3 6z LIFE LESSONS. 

And that may be seen by the light of burning Sodom. 
It is the inevitable doom of sin. You may fill your cup 
for a long while before the drop comes that will make it 
overflow. But it will come at last. So it was with 
Sodom. So it is and will be with every sinner. It will 
come, perhaps, in a moment nnlooked for. Judgment 
will break forth like the lightnings, and while you think 
yourself safe you will be crushed. 

And what a doom will yours be ? If Sodom and Go- 
morrah rise up in judgment against Chorazin and Beth- 
saida, will not Chorazin and Bethsaida, from their lowest 
deep, rise up to condemn you who deserve a lower ? And 
if the earthly vengeance that overtook Sodom and Go- 
morrah is too terrible to be described, what will your lot 
be, if you sin against the light of the clear shining Gos- 
pel, and the truth of your convictions ? 

Where, then, are you now ? In the broad way, in the 
paths of impenitence, with your " tent pitched toward 
Sodom?" Retrace your steps. Its smiling fields and 
glowing landscape allure to ruin. They are the crust of 
a fire-bed. Hasten away. Leave your gains and your 
gold, and save your soul ! 






XXXVIII. 

BLESSINGS AND DUTIES. 

" Other men labored and ye are entered into their labors." — John iv. 38. 

GRATITUDE is instinctive. A mind properly con- 
stituted cannot receive a favor without feeling 
impelled to acknowledge the obligation. All the bless- 
ings we are conscious of enjoying are so many calls made 
upon us, in the providence of God, to seek out and ac- 
knowledge their source. What is that source ? 

There can be but one, underived and original. There 
are ten thousand channels through which the blessings 
reach us, but we may trace them all back to one great 
fountain. We should not, as we drink the refreshing 
draught, spurn the cup or the hand that offers it ; but 
ought we not to recognize the heart that impels the 
hand? 

There are few of our privileges or comforts that are 
of our own individual procurement. They have been 
transmitted to us from past generations, or they are the 
fruits of social organization. Their true history carries 
us back to distant ages, or brings to view the sweat, and 
toil, and blood of others, whom, perhaps, we have never 
seen. There is scarcely a familiar utensil of our dwell- 
ings with which thousands of busy fingers have not been 
more or less associated. It is connected with slowly 
evolved processes of art, with the rudiments and progress 

(363) 



364 LIFE LESSONS. 

of science, with repeated experiments, with associated 
effort reaching back through centuries. 

How many of the things which contribute to your con- 
venience, if not necessity, have come from distant lands ! 
Yet before the vessel that brought them could spread 
her sails and go forth upon the broad, trackless ocean, 
the science of navigation had to be built up, aud the art 
of ship-building had to be perfected, and the methods of 
commerce, including the excavation of ore and the coin- 
ing of money had to be devised. The time was when 
the rude canoe was the highest achievement of ship- 
building art ; when the sailor, clinging to the coast-line, 
dared not venture out of sight of land ; when the fur- 
nace was as yet unknown, and only the rudest forms of 
barter were the embryo of a now world-wide commerce. 
It has taken ages to secure the progress that has been 
obtained. The history of navigation carries us back to 
the invention of the mariner's compass, to the study of 
astronomy by Newton, Copernicus, Gallileo, Ptolemy, 
nay, by the Chaldean shepherds watching their flocks by 
night, and taking the earliest critical observation of the 
stars by which the sailor determines his place on the 
broad ocean waste. It carries us back to the old crude 
methods of ship-building, when steam was unknown, and 
the ancient triremes were impelled by oars, and the sail 
was only a doubtful experiment. 

We must call to mind, also, the slow progress of geo- 
graphical science, exploring bay and river, and creeping 
venturously along the shores of the Mediterranean, and 
peering out, by the " Pillars of Hercules," into the un- 
known ocean ; then venturing with Columbus across the 
broad, watery waste, and revealing a New World ; then 
by countless voyages of bold explorers searching out a 






BLESSINGS AND DUTIES. 365 

path to the Indies, and perfecting, with new faint lines, 
the charts that map island, ocean, shallow and shore. 

Take your seat by your own quiet hearthstone, and 
think for a moment of the various relationships by which, 
in the enjoyment of your blessings, you are linked, not 
only to the present and the living, but to the distant and 
the dead. Let imaginary lines be drawn from each ob- 
ject that furnishes your dwelling, from each volume that 
lies upon your shelf or table, from each comfort or con- 
venience of your home, from each influence that has in- 
structed your mind or fashioned your character, back to 
the ten thousand objects in which they each originated, 
or in which they had their birth, and you will find your- 
self, like the sun, the centre of a vast system revolving 
about you, for your convenience ; nay, the centre of innu- 
merable rays of blessing and beneficence, only they are 
all received instead of dispensed. You will find that 
just as the sunbeams are so many telegraphic messengers, 
uniting, by their lines of light, every sand-grain, and 
dew-drop, every grass-blade, and leaf, and flower to one 
point ; so in your own home, in your own heart, meet the 
countless lines of influence and blessing that come 
streaming down to you through the centuries, and con- 
nect each of your comforts, conveniences, or privileges 
with the names, and toil, and invention, and heroism of 
innumerable benefactors, who, in one way or another, 
have bequeathed to you the results of their invention, 
their self-denial, their enterprise or their effort. 

The humblest utensil of household economy has really 
a history almost primeval, carrying you back to the long, 
rude and abortive experiments of semi-barbarous art. 
Invention and toil pioneered a tardy progress ; and just 
as the emigrant is forced to thread the mazes of the forest, 



3 66 LIFE LE880N8. 

open roads, and bridge streams, and toil on long and 
tediously beneath the deep shadows and amid the almost 
unbroken solitude, before Tillages and civilized art, 
schools, and churches, and social culture can spring up 
around him, so ages of toilsome endeavor must pioneer 
us before we can enter in peace upon the inheritance of 
their achievement. If you should undertake to write out 
in full the history of one of the most common implements 
of art — write it as the history of the steam-engine has 
been written — you would find yourself threading your 
way through the labyrinths of past centuries, gazing, 
perhaps, on the rude anvils that ring out amid German 
forests, or studying the primitive armor of Grecian 
heroes • or, floating down the stream of time, you would 
meet, perhaps, with some contribution from the specula- 
tions of an Albertus Magnus or Roger Bacon, some acci- 
dental discovery of a noted alchemist, some lingering 
tradition of oriental usage, some accidental discovery 
which genius stood ready to employ, till a printing press, 
a lightning rod, a safety lamp, or a lucifer match met 
your eye as the memorial of ages of striving and inven- 
tive experiment. As we read of the crude efforts of 
early art, we are not prepared to see at first their real 
and important connection with the triumphs of modern 
skill. And yet the stream that floats down to our doors 
the harvests of past ages of effort, is continuous, like a 
vast river, draining the valley of time of its ingenuity, 
fed, in its original, by countless springs bursting from 
distant hill-sides or from mountain snows, with tributaries 
winding unseen through the obscurity of dark ravines 
and interminable forests, without so much as a charted 
line for their memorial. A wandering traveler might 
sit down by the mossy brink of some mountain spring, or 



BLESSINGS AND DUTIES. 367 

launch his light canoe on the surface of some calm lake 
in the far off wilds without suspecting that it was the 
germ of a Mississippi or an Amazon ; that there the cur- 
rent that might at length float the navies of the world 
had its humble birth ; and so, in the remote tracts of 
time, the historic traveler might stumble, without know- 
ing it, upon some rude contrivance or simple fancy, or 
happy accident, which was the germ of a broad develop- 
ment of civilized industry, the head fountain that gave 
the impulse of its descending current to turn the wheels 
of the machinery of modern art. But so it is. Others 
have labored and we have entered into their labors. 
The clustering comforts of our homes, all the arts, and 
inventions, and discoveries that make them differ from 
the Indian's wigwam, or the kraal of the Hottentot, 
have come down to us from the labors of past and dis- 
tant generations. 

But what are all the material comforts of our civiliza- 
tion, much as we should miss them if they were with- 
drawn ; what are all the arts and conveniences that add 
refinement and lend their charm to our social life, and 
minister to our social enjoyment, by the side of those 
higher blessings of moral and religious privilege without 
which all beside is but as the shell without the kernel, 
the husk and chaff without the grain ? Here our vast 
indebtedness is again brought to view. I cannot take 
up the work of any great master in the world of thought 
without being constrained to confess how vast is the ob- 
ligation imposed upon me by the privilege of committing 
myself to his guidance, or listening to his animating words 
that lend wings to my spirit and teach it to soar to 
spheres of lofty meditation. I cannot turn over those 
leaves, crowded with conceptions that enrich my own 



368 LIFE LESSONS. 

soul as I read, that, in my just estimate, beggar all ma- 
terial wealth, without being constrained to acknowledge 
that I have entered upon an inheritance prepared by 
other hands, on gardens that they have planted, on vines 
that they have trained, and fountains that they have 
opened. I find my lost thoughts that roam at random, 
furnished with guides that lead me to scenes where the 
mind may feast itself on whatsoever is lofty and pure, 
glorious or sublime. They take me to the Pisgahs of 
vision, or to " chambers of imagery f or they lead me 
where the unfolded magnificence of more than sun and 
stars is spread out to my view, and I am roofed with a 
firmament of wisdom and goodness transcending that 
which the telescope unfolds. Those old thinkers, al- 
ready notching their centuries, how they call me up 
to them, or sit down by my side and speak to me in 
words that leave the most enduring impression ! They 
make me a different being. They expand my mind to a 
loftier stature ; they inspire my soul with their grand 
conceptions. With a pupil's gratitude I recognize them 
as masters. They have built with Herculean might, 
bridges of truth over gulfs of doubt, where else I had 
floundered, and mired, and sunk ; they have grappled 
with problems of being and providence that had else ap- 
palled my feebler powers. Across the centuries they 
stretch to me the hand of brotherhood, and cheer me, 
like them, to do and dare. 

Yet they have not enriched me alone. The social 
world around me, made so genial, or at least so tolerable, 
owes its culture of mind and heart to their endeavor. 
Their thoughts have been, for generations, like the early 
and the latter rain. Not only the lofty tree has been 
refreshed, but the lowliest grass-blade in the humblest 



BLESSINGS AND B UTIES. 369 

nook. Educate the leading minds of a people, and 
through them the blessings of knowledge and culture are 
distilled upon the whole field of social life. The quick- 
ening power of high, pure thought diffuses itself like the 
bracing influence of fresh air. The millions breathe it, 
and society and the State acquire a more vigorous life, 
in which we share, and by which we are blessed our- 
selves. Each virtue and each grace springs up refreshed. 
We are surrounded by the privileges and comforts of 
general intelligence, culture and refinement. 

Thus it is impossible for us to estimate how much we 
owe — not for the wealth of mere abstract speculative 
thought, but for practical enlightenment and permanent 
impulse — to those who have preceded us, who have made 
our books, fashioned our literature, and left the impress 
of their large and sagacious wisdom on the institutions 
that we enjoy. Perhaps they were accounted theorists. 
Perhaps they were classed as pedants or book-worms. Yet 
their explorations have discovered and opened mines of 
thought, or the trees they planted have proved century 
oaks, under which generations have sat and sung. The very 
soil itself has a larger value, that their feet have trod it, 
and that their thoughts are current in the minds of those 
that tread it still. We are the richer vastly in intellec- 
tual and spiritual wealth, that they have lived and medi- 
tated, and spoken, but we are also richer in the domain 
of art and material wealth. The very acres, the dead 
soil, the hills and valleys themselves, acquire a new 
value, that they have been pressed by the feet of the 
pilgrims, or been hallowed by the presence of a Washing- 
ton. We are richer that Milton wrote, that Bacon 
and Locke speculated, and that Newton read to us the 
lessons of the stars — richer not only in the treasures of 
16* 



37 o LIFE LESSONS. 

learning, but in the wealth which the State recognizes 
and the miser hoards. 

Thus, all the great students and thinkers of the past 
have labored for us. The speculations of the philoso- 
phers, and the glowing visions and inspiring thoughts of 
the poet are our rich inheritance. Columbus discovered 
for us the New World, but far more glorious in their 
aims and hopes, the great navigators on the sea of hu- 
man thought trusting to the unerring needle of the Word 
of God, have opened to us, not a new world, but a new 
firmament of worlds. How vastly enlarged, how im- 
mensely expanded, is the field of enterprise which they 
have set before us ! To what new and hitherto unex- 
plored realms have we been conducted under their guid- 
ance ! They make the tenant of the humblest hovel the 
possible lord of a vast, a boundless domain. Who that 
reflects for a moment on the range of intellectual vision, 
on the fields of experience, on the wealth of motive, on 
the inspiring power of high and hallowed example — all 
arrayed before us through the labors of ttie great minds 
of the past, can restrain his lips from the involuntary con- 
fession of our vast indebtedness ? 

If we consider our civil privileges, we shall find that 
they are not of our own procurement. They are an in- 
heritance, and how often toil-won or blood-bought ! 
Orderly and constitutional government — government by 
law and by rulers of our own choice — is one of the latest 
matured harvests of time. Wisest men have studied the 
arts of constructing States. Jurisprudence is an old 
science. Its foundations lie deep in the early ages, when 
Draconian codes, or the wisdom of Solons and Numas, 
or the imported "Tables" of Roman laws commanded 
veneration and respect. How slowly and tediously even 



BLESSINGS AND DUTIES 



371 



down to the present, has the science progressed through 
Koman organization and statesmanship — the care of 
Justinian and Theodosius, the labors of Ulpian and Tri- 
bonian, the research and speculations and conclusions of 
Grotius and Vattel, of the Cokes and Blackstones, and 
Stowells, and Kents, and Storys, and Livingstons, whose 
names are the lights of jurisprudence, and under whose 
guidance it has attained to its present position ! 

In civil progress experiment has followed experiment, 
and failure has succeeded to failure, till inch by inch, we 
have been permitted to feel that there was at least some 
advance. All this while precedents have been accumu- 
lating, experience has been stored up. 

Who can estimate oar debt to the wisdom, valor and 
large foresight of the heroes of the Revolution and the 
early statesmen of the Republic ? Let their names, then, 
be honored as they deserve. Among them were true and 
noble, as well as able men, and history, to its latest page, 
must recognize their worth. They took large views of 
the future. They laid the foundations of Government 
deep and strong. They built more wisely, in some re- 
spects, than they imagined. If as men, on some points, 
they proved fallible, it is not for us sharply to criticise 
their errors. Later statesmanship, with all the lessons 
of a larger experience before it, leaves still undimmed 
the splendor of names like those of Washington and Frank- 
lin, Hamilton, Adams, Jay, Jefferson, and Witherspoon. 

The inquiry is pertinent, How came we by such men ? 
The statesmen of that age were themselves the pupils of 
the past. For their wisdom, for their sagacity, for their 
principles, and their methods of applying them, they were 
indebted to the experience of earlier periods. The ex- 
amples of preceding failure and success in kindred ex- 



372 LIFE LESSONS. 

periments had not been lost upon them. If not versed, 
all of them, in classic Icre, there were certain important 
lessons, traced as epitaphs on the tombstones of dead em- 
pires, which they knew by heart. For their instruction, 
history opened her broad page ; for their warning or 
guidance, political philosophy trimmed her lamps — some 
of them long dimmed and half stifled in the sepulchres 
of buried nations ; for them Locke and Sidney had 
speculated, and for them the Bradfords and Winthrops 
had, on the bleak coast of New England, changed the 
ideal to the actual. It was not in vain for them that 
Hampden had resisted the payment of an illegal tax, or 
that Milton had pleaded so eloquently for " the liberty 
of unlicensed printing." The Constitution which they 
framed was, in reality — as to its elements — a mosaic 
made up from all preceding ages and from the contribu- 
tions of all the most eminent thinkers that had gone be- 
fore. Fragments of the old Jewish theocracy were 
there ; scraps borrowed from the speculations of Plato 
and Cicero ; lessons out of Athenian history and the 
Achaian league ; suggestions borrowed from Eoman or- 
ganization and the Justinian Code ; ideas transplanted 
from the history of the Mediaeval Italian republics, and 
the towns of the Hanseatic league, and the Federal ex- 
perience of the Swiss cantons j principles that had shot 
up to a world-admired harvest in the little Genevan re- 
public, that had flourished in the rise and triumph of the 
Netherlands over the tyranny of Spain, that had been 
scattered abroad to germinate under the ashes of Eng- 
land's Smithfields, and amid Scottish heaths and glens, 
that had, in fact, crossed the ocean in the Mayflower and 
been embodied in town and church organisms, under the 
shadow of the half-subdued forests of the Eastern colonies. 



BLESSINGS AND DUTIES. 



373 



This is not a picture of fancy. The more close our 
scrutiny the more clearly will the indebtedness of our 
early statesmen be confessed. They received the be- 
quest of the world's antecedent experience and a sum- 
mary of the results of its endeavors in that sphere in 
which they were specially to labor. Their merit was, 
that, trained under peculiar circumstances by that Provi- 
dence that raised them up for their work, they used them 
wisely and well. But no history of the construction of 
the Constitution could be more curious or instructive 
than the history of its component elements, and the in- 
fluences and experiences by which they were moulded 
and shaped. And, in the final search, whence came 
these, but from the same wise Providence and the same 
divine goodness that trained up for us those patriot 
statesmen ? 

So, also, the men of their age had been providentially 
fitted for the crisis they were called to meet. The best 
blood of England flowed in their veins. They were the 
children of those who had fought under Cromwell, who 
had listened to Howe and Owen, Baxter and Manton, 
Norton and Shepard, and Hooker. They had been 
forced to wrestle with untamed Nature, and, by sweat 
and toil, wring their bread from an ungenial soil. The 
war-whoop had not died out of the forests around them 
ere many of them had attained to early manhood, and 
some of them had been cradled in forts or to the echo of 
the sentinel's tread. But more than all, they had read 
the Bible ; they had read of Moses and an oppressed 
people, of Gideon and the deliverance he wrought, of 
David and his defiance of the Philistine. They had pon- 
dered over Christ's words : " Render unto Caesar the 
things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that 



3 74 LIFE LE8S0N8. 

are God's." They had received by tradition and from 
trustworthy records the story of the martyrs' faith and 
the hardships of the victims of Star Chamber and High 
Commission, till antipathy toward tyrants, secular or ec- 
clesiastic, Straffords or Lauds, beat in every pulse. 

And then came those irritating attempts to invade the 
liberties of the Colonists, which, for a whole generation, 
were training them for the decisive hour. Nothing 
shows more strikingly the Providence that was working 
out the result, that was training our fathers, and fitting 
them to respond to the appeal that was soon to be made 
to their endurance and their valor. 

We see thus our indebtedness to them and our indebt- 
edness also to the Providence that raised them up and 
prepared them for their work. Thus, we go back to the 
Pilgrims, to the Reformers,, to the Martyrs. But we 
cannot stop even with the Reformation, its heroisms and 
its martyrs : for these were but tributaries of a stream 
that had been flowing all along, almost hidden, indeed, 
while it wound feebly through the wilderness of the Dark 
Ages, but bursting forth in its freshness from the foun- 
tain of Calvary, and in the early centuries giving assur- 
ance of a force and a volume which could not be sup- 
pressed. The Author of the Gospel, the Founder of 
Christianity, the One who gave his Apostles " a mouth 
and wisdom," and taught them to endure the fiery trial, 
is really the original source of all our political and social 
blessings, and only a shallow philosophy overlooks the fact. 

Thus, for ourselves we must confess that " others have 
labored, and we have entered into their labors." ' Hands 
that have long been folded in the grave sowed the seed 
of which we reap the harvest. Upon us " the ends of 
the world are come." The tree of privilege under which 



BLESSINGS AND DUTIES. 375 

we repose, or from the loaded branches of which we pluck 
the richest fruit, was planted long before our birth. It 
is a patriarch of the forest, a Runnyrnede memorial, a 
Charter Oak of centuries, that had a history already be- 
fore its spreading shadow had fringed the shores of this 
Western World. It sprang up long ago, when the heel 
of mailed warriors trampled the leaves of its bed, when 
the streams of devotion that poured forth from prison 
and catacomb, and the streams of blood that flowed in 
the amphitheatre, or from the block, watered its young 
life. Justin Martyr vindicated its right to be, and Au- 
gustine in his " City of God V registered its growth and 
forecast its prospects. It sent out its roots till they 
struck deep in the soil of centuries ; and one reached out 
its fibres to drink from the soil where the blood of the 
faithful had flowed, and another twined itself about 
Magna Charta, and another about WicklifiVs Bible and 
the homes of the Lollards, and another drank up the 
dews that fell silent upon the scenes where a Claude, and 
a Bernard, and a Savonarola labored, and another reached 
afar to the banks of the Moldau and the shores of Con- 
stance to imbibe the virtue that was in the lives and the 
ashes of the Bohemian Reformers, and another reached 
toward the Swiss Cantons and the School of Calvin, and 
another was rooted in Wittemberg and the German for- 
ests, and others still might be found beneath the fires of 
Smithfield, or the flats and dykes of Holland, or about 
the Bass Rock and the Tolbooth of Scotland, while still 
another found its way to the bleak coasts of the Western 
wilderness and clasped the rock made sacred by the feet 
of the Pilgrims — thus making ages and generations 
tributary to its growth, till the very sap of the tree 
seemed the commingled life-blood of centuries, and the 



376 LIFE LESSONS. 

fruit it bore was enriched by the flavor of every age and 
clime. Its bark is the sculptured register of heroic 
names and deeds, growing larger with each new ring 
that swells the giant trunk. We may read upon it 
names like those of Huss and Luther, and Calvin, Wick- 
liffe and Knox, Latimer and Cranmer, Cromwell and 
Hampden, Sidney and Russell, Milton and Marvel, nay, 
of our own Elliotts and Winthrops, and Mathers and Ed- 
wardses and Hookers. Ages ago, in times of its earlier 
feebler growth, God's saints knelt beneath its shade, and 
Puritan's prayer and Covenanter's song echoed through 
its branches. The blasts of persecuting power wrestled 
in vain with its gnarled strength. The scars of its torn 
limbs only attest its triumphant endurance, and in each 
of them we may read the struggles and conflicts through 
which it has been spared to cast its grateful shadow 
about our favored homes. And never should we forget 
how it has sheltered us, spreading its broad, majestic 
arms like a shield over tent and altar, embowering free- 
dom and justice, intellectual and moral culture, beneath 
its genial shade, and proving itself a Tree of Life in the 
Eden of our favored lot. 

Who can look thoughtfully upon it without feeling a 
sort of homage for its venerable form and massive trunk, 
or having his heart stirred within him by reminiscences 
of its earlier prime ; without acknowledging that it is 
Time's memorial of the good and brave, planted by God's 
own gracious providence, watered by prayer, cultured by 
self-denial, and fed from every great and heroic deed 
that has dropped the enriching leaves of spent endeavor 
thick over its spreading roots ? Who can properly re- 
gard it without feeling that it calls upon us not only to 
cherish the memory of our fathers, but to lift up our 



BLESSINGS AND DUTIES. 377 

hearts in devout thanksgiving to Him who, by the ante- 
cedent preparation of centuries, qualified them and their 
materials for what they were to accomplish, and then 
wrought Himself in them mightily ? 

But of our religious privileges it is preeminently true 
that they have been bestowed as a free gift, and yet their 
price was paid by the self-denial and the sufferings of 
others. They come from the Great Giver, but they come 
through the channels of human endeavor and voluntary 
self-sacrifice. We have entered upon the inheritance of 
others 7 toil. How little do we realize in its enjoyment, 
how much it has cost! We have the Bible, and we justly 
count it an unspeakable treasure ; yet in what agony of 
soul, amid what prison glooms, what sorrow and exile 
were many of its lines written! What fidelity, even 
unto death, has guarded the sacred trust ! what fires of 
persecution have been kindled around it, and what rivers 
of blood have flowed to quench those fires ! The hymns 
we sing — how many of them, like Henry Kirke White's 
" Star of Bethlehem/ 7 have been coined out of sighs and 
groans, and tears, the inward anguish of a broken and 
contrite heart ! How many a book of devotion, like a 
crushed flower, gives forth the fragrance of a soul bruised 
under the strokes of affliction ! And if the trampled shell 
may be said to " bleed pearls," how many a gem of piety 
and hallowed trust, " of purest ray serene," that sparkles 
upon us out of the night of worldliness and sin, has been 
compacted of drops from the wounds of sanctified sorrow! 
The great names of the sainted dead that, like stars in the 
firmament of the past, cheer the twilight of a journey that 
will end with the everlasting dawn, are largely the names 
of those who " have passed through great tribulation. 7 ' 

Is it strange that the ancient Egyptians in the blind- 



378 LIFE LESSONS. 

ness of their heathenism, adored their river Nilus as a 
God? They could not trace it to its source. That 
source was hidden far away in a region which human 
enterprise had, century after century, vainly attempted to 
explore, and which only in our own day has been dis- 
covered to the world. Yet year after year, this wonder- 
ful stream, ceaselessly flowing, brought down to the great 
valley, with its periodical overflow, the sediment that en- 
riched, and the waters that refreshed the parched fields. 
And is there not another Nile on the banks of which 
we dwell — a Nile more wonderful than that, the origin 
of which was so long unknown — one that brings down 
to us with each returning day, instead of year, blessings 
by the side of which those for which the Egyptian deified 
his ancient river, are but straws and dust ? Our Nile is 
the river of Christian truth and privilege, which rolls on 
by Our doors, that current in which are combined streams 
of ancestral blessing, flowing sometimes from hidden 
fountains scattered over the broad tract of past ages, 
sometimes from the Bethels and Goshens, and juniper 
trees and caves and mountain sides of which we read, 
where holy men have knelt and prayed and communed 
with heaven. On and on they flow, till the fountain 
opened on Calvary pours forth its tide, and the united 
streams then, like the ancient Nilus, become a river 
that needs no other tributary, but rolls along down to us 
its golden sands, and all the freightage of the holy ex- 
ample and the sanctified experience and rich harvests of 
the ages of Christian endeavor through which it flows. 
Follow along its track now, or drift upon its current, and 
you will find it sweeping by the side of scenes of glorious 
memories — funeral piles and scaffolds, and the prisons of 
the early martyrs ; along the valleys lined with glens 



BLESSINGS AND DUTIES. 



379 



and caves and the catacombs that cradled and sheltered 
the infant church ; along scenes of exile and solitude 
where God's suffering saints could wake the silence of 
nature with prayer and song. You find its banks lined 
with the most memorable scenes of history, Pentecost, 
Patmos, Nero's prison, the Amphitheatre that rang so 
often with " the Christians to the lions ! " the cells where 
the Jeromes and Bedes and Bernards in days of darkness 
kept fresh in the world the spirit of devotion ; the old 
Bethlehem church at Prague where Huss preached at the 
risk of his life ; Wittemberg and Geneva, and England's 
Smithfield, fragrant with the memory of the martyrs ; 
Spanish autos de fe the blazing fagots of which told 
where heaven stooped to take its loved ones to its bosom ; 
the bleak hills of the Grisons, where Italian exiles 
preached the Saviour they loved ; the villages of the 
Albigenses and the valleys of the Waldenses — till you 
feel that no river known to modern exploration or 
" ancient song " can boast such magnificent volume, such 
historical scenes, such inspiring monuments, as this glo- 
rious river of Christian privilege, " the streams whereof 
make glad the city of our God." 

And for us this river flows. Down to our age does it 
come bearing the precious bequest of all the generations 
that have gone before. They have labored and we have 
entered into their labors. As we enter upon our inheri- 
tance, realizing what it cost, who does not feel almost 
like David when he refused the draught offered him from 
the well of Bethlehem — asking with genuine humanity, 
" Is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy 
of their lives ? " Surely we tread upon hallowed ground. 
Our harvests are gathered from soil that has been watered 
by patriot blood. The ashes of martyrs are beneath our 



380 LIFE LESSONS. 

feet. Our most precious privileges have been won and 
guarded and transmitted to us by the sleepless vigilance 
of those who have fallen in their defense. 

We owe to them a vast debt, but they have passed 
beyond the reach of our gratitude. We may cherish 
their memory, we may build their monuments, we may 
charge historian and poet to commemorate their fame, 
but that is all ; we only express our indebtedness, we 
do not cancel it ; we cannot. But is there not one for 
whom they were instruments, who " wrought in them 
mightily," who made them simply the willing distributors 
of his beneficence, who still lives, and who inherits all 
their claims as well as maintains His own ? 

Most assuredly there is : and to his cause, to his ser- 
vice, we may devote our energies and talents, and thus 
render back, not what we owe, but the testimonial of 
our gratitude. And shall we not do it? Shall we not 
feel that in such a world as this, the recipients of such 
privileges as ours may not longer live to themselves ; 
that selfishness is crime ; that we, the heirs of the past, 
hold what we have in trust for generations to come ? 

Ours then should be the broadest philanthropy, the 
most ready and cheerful charity. We should ever ac- 
knowledge the claims of the Great Giver in every object 
of his care to which we may be the ministers of his 
bounty, or to which we may extend the privileges pur- 
chased for us by no mercenary hands and in no selfish 
spirit. The lessons of duty which are read to us from 
the page of history, urging us to gratitude by the bless- 
ings that God's servants have toiled and suffered in His 
name to procure for us, are properly one with the second 
great Commandment of the law ? " Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself." 



XXXIX. 

VALUE OP TIME. 

" It is turned as clay to the seal." — Job xxxviii. 14. 

AS clay to the seal, so light is said to fit itself to the 
object it meets. But the same also is true of 
time. How readily it takes the shape we give it, but, 
unlike the light, it keeps it. And yet the business of 
our life is to shape time, to furnish the mould to which it 
shall adapt itself. A good man's life is so many years 
moulded into the forms of truth, and virtue, and religion. 
A bad man's life is so many years allowed to take the 
distorted shapes of sin. Time is plastic as the clay, as 
the light ; and yet, when once shaped, it is past being re- 
called to be shaped again. The great question of life is, 
therefore, how shall we use our time ; how shape our 
years, hours, and moments. 

To answer this question we must consider, first, the 
value of time as our material to work upon. 

Its value is seen first from the fact that it is the neces- 
sary material of life. All that life has of good, or great, 
or valuable, or useful, is fashioned out of it. Time is 
our quarry. Out of it we bring the well-spent hour, the 
well-spent year, the well-spent life. Time for an intelli- 
gent being, is the equivalent of existence, and we must 
estimate it by the capabilities or possibilities which it in- 
volves ; what it can do for character, virtue, integrity, 

(381) 



382 LIFE LESSONS. 

piety, Christian hope, beneficence. Who can tell the 
value of these ? 

Time is the iron in the mine. "What shapes you can 
give that iron ! You can melt, and mould it and ham- 
mer it into a thousand implements, from the nail to the 
steam-engine. It is true you can abuse it. You can 
arm the soldier with it ; give him spear, and dagger, 
and cannon-ball to murder with on a magnificent scale. 
But what could you accomplish without it ? It is the 
material to be fashioned, and you must have it, or you 
cannot have what is made of it. So with time • that, too , 
is liable to perversion. Like the iron, it may be ham- 
mered into that which is useful or deadly, but without it 
there could be nothing like life or life's deeds. 

Time is valuable, again, because of the character of 
what you can fashion out of it. It can be put to the 
most valuable shapes and uses. The iron is worth more 
than the clay ; the gold more than the iron ; time, more 
than all. There is no pearl of the sea, no diamond glit- 
tering in the mine, that can be cut into such priceless and 
sparkling forms of beauty as these hours and years. 
There is no jewel in kingly crown that shines like a well- 
spent hour ; none whose loss is worth the tears which 
that Roman Emperor Titus shed when he said, " I have 
lost a day." How the sculptor exults when he comes in 
possession of a block of the finest Parian marble, for he 
is thinking what his chisel can make of it. See him 
examine it. He looks it all over. He sees that it is of 
the finest grain, without a single crack or flaw. And 
yet what is it? A rude, unfashioned block of stone; 
without sense, feature, or expression. And yet out of that 
rude mass he will bring a noble statue, expression glow- 
ing on every feature ; another Washington, or another 



VALUE OF TIME. 383 

Webster, till the marble will almost speak. So tlie 
artist values that rude block, and the world gathers to 
admire what he has brought out of it. But time is a 
nobler block for the skill of a higher art. No sculptor's 
hand ever chiseled on the marble any thing more than the 
bare image and shadow of that impress which these 
years can be made to bear. It is for you to make the 
artist's ideal a reality ; it is for you to touch his marble 
and make it live and breathe ; it is for you to make his 
fancy fact, and his imagination truth ; it is for you to 
take his loftiest ideal of what is great, and good, and 
pure, and make it live in time. 

Would you know the value of the marble ? See what 
has been fashioned out of it. See how human skill has 
brought out the image of whatever the world has seen 
of great, or good, or noble. Would you know the value 
of time ? See the lives of Christian men that have been 
cut out of it. Less than seventy years made a Paul, a 
Payson, a Baxter, an Edwards. Think of that noblest 
gallery of art, the great assembly of the spirits of just 
men made perfect — every one of them a model, every 
one of them fashioned to the divine image. And what 
is all other wealth ; what other treasures of art by the side 
of this ? A holy life, in the sight of God, is of inestima- 
ble value. It is the only true wealth ; and if you can 
bring it out of the seventy years of existence, what 
must the material of these years be worth ? A cup of 
cold water given in the name of a disciple shall not lose 
its reward ; and how many thousand times may it, or 
something like it, be repeated ? Out of one hour you 
may bring forth some feature of penitence, or faith, or 
charity, or hope. What out of a year ? what out ol life ? 

The value of time, too, is seen in the permanence of its 



384 LIFE LESSONS. 

results. You may stamp it as you can the wax or the 
clay, but the stamp made, the impression lasts forever. 
You can mould your days and years at will, but once 
moulded, they are fixed for eternity. A thing done is 
" cut with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond ; it 
is graven on the rock forever." The marble may 
crumble, the mountains melt, the earth burn to a cinder, 
but that deed outlives the final conflagration. How plas- 
tic time is on our hands. Like the clay pressed upon 
the seal, like the light laying itself upon every object, so 
time fits itself to our every will. We can make what 
we will of it ; we can pour it, like the molten iron, into 
what mould we please ; the mighty thing shapes itself 
to our thought. It lays itself upon the face of our mind 
and fits itself to every feature. Not an atom, not a hair 
fails of its imprint. And how that imprint lasts ! 
Ages do not corrode a fragment or a trace. What would 
a sculptor give for such a piece of marble ? He works 
hard and long on the hard stone to bring it into shape, 
and, when shaped, how the ages crumble it, turn it into 
a pile of dust ! A careless hand knocks off one feature 
or another, and the mutilated thing is thrown among the 
rubbish. But time is not like the marble ; what it takes 
it keeps — its statues are immortal. 

But time is a valuable material, because what we bring 
out of it is our own, and ours forever. It is something 
that we shall carry with us when time itself is no more. 
Time's offspring shall outlive its sire. The image of our 
life hewn out of these years is our living self, our 
character, our conscious being— every deed or thought 
that has gone to make up what we are. This is the true 
wealth — what a man is in himself ; all else is but trap- 
pings, smoke, show. His gold and silver, houses and 



VALUE OF TIME. 385 

lands, are only the dust on the lid that covers the treas- 
ure of himself. They are foreign to him. They are 
as his only for the hour ; his to weigh him down, per- 
haps ; his as Pilgrim's burden was, till he reached the 
cross. They are put into his hands just for a day, that 
it may be seen what he may do with them, whether he 
will make a plaything or an implement of labor out of 
them. But they are foreign to his true treasure. They 
are not his as his deeds and character are ; they are not 
his as his life is, inseparable from his being. The rich 
man crosses the threshold of the grave, and, in the 
twinkling of an eye, he becomes a beggar ; begs for a 
drop of cold water, too poor to buy it. The beggar goes, 
too, but he looks, perhaps, to the eternal throne, God's 
heir, and says, " My Father." The man that owns a 
gold mine is not rich for it ; the man that owns the 
world is not rich for it. Perhaps he does not own his 
own soul ; he has lost it, and the Devil holds the title- 
deed, and what is he without it ? But the man that owns 
the quarry of time may be rich. He may bring up the 
hours and days rich with beneficence and piety, every 
one worth more than a thousand ingots of gold. And 
they will be his when every thing else, even his body, 
feeds the worm. He will take them with him, to death, 
to the judgment, to heaven, to the throne of God. No 
one shall tear them away. The deed I have done is mine 
forever. You may steal my hoards, you may burn my 
dwelling, you may rob me of my limbs, you may chase 
this tenant-spirit out of its poor crumbling dwelling, and 
leave it no home in the flesh ; but there is a wealth that 
I shall carry with me, not wrapped in napkins, not stored 
in safes, for that deed is mine ; all that I have hewn 
out of time's quarry will go with me ; the things I have 
17 



386 LIFE LESSONS. 

done, the experience that has measured out my years. 
Those deeds of generosity, or self-denial, or faith, Or pen- 
itence, or prayer, are my true wealth, and all else is 
clay. They may have been done for others, but still 
they are mine ; mine when I die, mine when I am judged, 
mine forever. They are a part and parcel of my own 
being ; they have grown into my immortal life ; they are 
the elements of my soul, the features of my spirit. They 
beat in every pulse of thought, and feeling and hope ; 
they are threads in the white angel robe, leaves of the 
palms that God keeps for me in heaven. Death will not 
despoil me of them. He will take the rags and dust that 
were ready to drop off. But of the righteous it is said, 
" Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, yea, saith 
the Spirit, for they rest from their labors, and their works 
do follow them." I shall then be rich in God. 

What a mine of wealth to work them is that of time ! 
What unspeakable treasures are hid in these unexplored 
years ; what inconceivable heights and degrees of blessed- 
ness ; what after memories of holy living and beneficent 
action ; what riches of penitence, humility and love ! 
And of all that we quarry out of this mine, nothing shall 
be lost, not a grain, not a fragment. 

The value of time as material is seen again from the 
fact that it is never given but once, and consequently, 
when lost, can never be regained. God never gives the 
same moment twice. His dealing with us— His provi- 
dence says, " Use it now or never." You can do as you 
like, but here is the alternative. It will never come 
again. What a value does this give to a thing, to have 
written on it " Now or never !" How do we call the time 
of securing it the golden moment! It would be less 
valuable if we could make it wait on our leisure. But 



VALUE OF TIME. 387 

time is not like silver that we can lay it by, and keep it till 
time of need. It must be used when given. It is like the 
manna that must be gathered in time, and not be stored up. 

But more than this, when gone, there is no recalling 
it. Ask the fled year to come back. Will it? Call 
aloud for one of its privileges, one of its hours of mercy. 
Will it return? As well stand by the grave and summon 
out of its coffin one of death's prisoners. That year is 
gone and will come no more. You might redeem a cap- 
tive, but " the redemption of the soul," of time, " is pre- 
cious, and it ceaseth forever." There is no opportunity 
to barter it back. Mines hold no equivalent, treasuries 
no wealth that can bribe it into your hands. 

What would not men sometimes give for a lost oppor- 
tunity ! Even in a worldly point of view it is priceless. 
See that man that has been thrust into the duties and 
responsibilities of manhood, without good habits, without 
education — without a distinct aim or a fixed character ! 
He sees his error now, but it is too late. Oh, if youth 
would come back again ! Oh, if he might but live those 
years over ! He would give the Indies, if he had them. 
He would pawn an empire, if he owned it. They seem 
the only valuable thing that he ever had, and they are 
squandered. They are his lost birth-right. He is an- 
other Esau. Oh, if there were but a place for repent- 
ance ! But there is none. He is a beggared bankrupt. 
He feels it when too late — the martyr of a lost oppor- 
tunity ; the victim of his own lie, when he said " Youth is 
rich in time." 

" Youth is not rich in time, it may be poor ; 
Part with it as with money, sparing. Pay 
No moment but in purchase of its worth ; 
And what its worth, ask death-beds ; they can tell." 



388 LIFE LESSONS. 

If any thing were wanting to set the seal on the value of 
time, it is this, that its loss is irrevocable. There, on his 
solitary island, is the poor shipwrecked sailor. Years 
ago, after his misfortune, there passed a vessel that might 
have rescued him, but he lit no signal fire. How many 
times since has he thought what that hour was worth ! 
You may be that poor, forlorn object, if you let the hour 
of probation go. 

Thus we see time's value. It is the material of life. 
It is the most noble of all material to work. No mine 
is so rich or abundant. Its results last. They are eter- 
nal. What we draw from it is our own, and ours for- 
ever — the only thing that is, and when lost, it can never 
be recovered. 

But what is the skill necessary to improve time — to 
work this mine, if you please, or shape this material? 
Certainly, it calls for all the wisdom and skill that man 
has — for it is work of the highest, and holiest, and 
gravest art. 

Time is not like clay that a careless hand may mould 
and crush, and no damage be done. You cannot gather 
this up again and put it on the wheel. It is not like the 
iron, that can be taken out of the imperfect mould, and 
put into the furnace, and so re-cast. It is not like the 
marble, its fractured mass replaced by a new block. It 
is not like gold, the value of which can be weighed by 
ounces. It stands alone among earth's treasures, far above 
them all. It should be dealt with by a wise and careful 
hand. What would the sculptor think to see a rude 
blunderer pounding away with his sledge-hammer at a 
noble block which he had destined for the material of his 
master-piece ? How indignantly would he reprove such 



VALUE OF TIME. 389 

ignorance and folly ! What madness, he would say, to 
batter and deform such noble material ! What spirit of 
devastation and vandalism could induce to the deed? 
And yet what is the blunderer on marble to the blunderer 
on time, carelessly dashing off the parts that might be 
shaped into the full proportions of a perfect frame ? Is 
the man that lives for God and heaven to live with less 
reflection, and act with less care in the improvement of 
time than the artist bestows upon his stone? The 
highest artist of all is he who fashions forms of beau- 
ty, and truth, and love. All other art is poor and beg- 
garly by the side of this. Yet go into the sculptor's 
studio and see him at his work. He toils for hours, all 
absorbed in his task, and seems scarcely to have moved 
a muscle. You look and see how carefully he uses his 
chisel. Here a mere grain, and there a grain, like an 
atom of dust, is removed. Hours pass, and you cannot 
see that he has accomplished any thing. The unpractised 
eye can perceive no change. But, a few months hence, 
that product of his skill will be the envy of kings and 
courts. Oh, man, thou sculptor of time, the artist re- 
proves thee ! Will he deal so carefully with the cold 
stone, and will you abandon to neglect and a rude hand 
that material which God has given, that with more than 
Zeuxis 7 boast you may say " I work for eternity ?" 

That artist gave toil and study under the best masters 
to gain his skill, before he put his hand to that master- 
piece. You have not taken your first lesson of the Great 
Master, perhaps. You have not comprehended the first 
problem in the book of life. And yet you take hold of 
this precious, unspeakably precious material, as you might 
of clay or earth ; you put it in all sorts of distorted 
shapes ; you carelessly knock off the fragments of days 



39 o LIFE LE&SONS. 

and years that you need to fill out the proportions of a 
perfect life. To make the whole mass of your years the 
plaything of your fancy or your pleasure, you scarce 
ever ask, " What is that noble thing that I can bring out 
of them ?" You show, it may be, no anxiety to leave 
them behind in any other shape than a pile of rubbish. 

But is it to be supposed that without study and effort, 
the highest results of a hallowed ambition will ever be 
realized? What is gained without effort? What is 
worth gaining ? What man floats to his goal ? Every- 
where men put forth skill and science and muscle. Great 
men are great workers ; holy men are. 

Toil and attainment are almost identical. The scholar, 
the artist, the merchant, all strive if they gain. Shall 
the greatest boon — the greatest wealth of life, be ours 
by indolence ? 

What is it then that is needed to make the most of 
time ? Skill, toil, wisdom, in no common measure ! And 
what skill, what wisdom ? That of the man who piles 
his heaps of wealth highest ? That of him who can in- 
trigue most successfully? That of the man who can 
absorb the most philosophy ? That of the man who can 
spice life with the greatest variety of pleasure ? No ! it 
is none of these. It is that skill, that wisdom that is 
taught in the school of Christ, that can tell heaven's true 
coin from its counterfeit, that can appreciate the true 
worth of life, that can know, in fact, how to live. To 
have that skill you must have the help and teaching of 
God — the great almighty artist himself must instruct 
you. You must come to His word and there discover, 
what time is worth to the heir of eternity, what proba- 
tion is given for, and how the flying moments can be 
made winged messengers to carry the treasures of a holy 



VALUE OF TIME. 391 

life for you up to God's throne and store them there. 
You must find the die to stamp the hours with, that will 
stamp their true value ; you must know what your work 
is on earth as a sinner in (rod's sight, bound to the judg- 
ment, with mercy possible through a Saviour, with a day 
of grace hasting to its close, with a dying world around 
to be led by your words and deeds to the gates of life . 

And then to all this knowledge, must be added application 
and effort. All your years will be a dead loss without it. 
No man has ever proved time's value, but, like holy men, 
he has wrestled and striven. Let time take its own course, 
let the years go as they may, and they will never float you 
to heaven. You must watch with the rudder in your 
hand. The Great Pilot said, " Watch and pray !" The 
Apostle said give diligence to make your calling and 
election sure ! 

And once more, what is done must be done quickly. 
Time admits of no delay. He will not wait neglected 
at the door. You cannot put him off as you do others. 
Each moment comes and knocks, and if you open not, 
goes his way, and is seen no more till in the judgment, 
he stands up and says, " You slighted me." 

Surely , our responsibility for the use of time is great 
and fearful. It is a solemn and weighty trust. It is 
even a terrible thing to live. Years of existence in a 
world where we may hew those years into a staircase to 
heaven, are of untold value. What a man does with 
them is an immense matter of concern, to himself, to men, 
to angels, to God. An eternity hangs upon it. A judg- 
ment will be decided by it. 

The results of a right use of time s will be immensely 
glorious. Only see what they are on earth. Even in 
the short span of human life, see what some men have 



392 LIFE LESSONS. 

become. They have made time a vast mine out of which 
they have brought all the treasures of cultivated intel- 
lect, of hallowed piety, of generous and self-denying 
benevolence. They have built themselves up by the grace 
of God, " to the stature of a perfect man in Christ 
Jesus." They have walked the earth they blessed, ma- 
jestic to all ages, in the consciousness of highest and 
holiest aspirations, divine patterns before men. We 
wreath their names with blessing. We bless God that 
they lived. There is nothing on earth so beautiful, so 
grand, so lovely as finished Christian character, radiant 
with every virtue, featured after the divine image. Go 
to the grandest works of human skill and art, the piles 
of a magnificent architecture, the temples that were the 
work of centuries, the galleries of painting and sculpture 
rich with works of earthly immortality, and what are 
all those dead things to the magnificent temple of the 
human soul, on whose front broadly traced is read the 
plain inscription, " God dwells within ?" 

But the results of an abuse of time are terrible. You 
see this even on earth. Pile up all the epithets of misery 
that human language possesses, and they are nothing but 
an inch measure to the mountain of guilt and woe that 
abused time flings on the remorseful, agonizing soul of 
the confirmed transgressor. A hardened heart — harder 
than the nether millstone — that the love of Calvary can- 
not melt, nor the thunderings of Sinai rend, is made in 
a less space than seventy years. No plummet of human 
thought can fathom the untold depths of misery which is 
reached sometimes in life's short span. The hideous and 
devilish features of a Herod or a Nero are cut for 
eternity by the chiselings of a few short years. What 
images of distortion and enormous crime rise up out of 



VALVE OF TIME. 393 

the graveyard of the past at the mention of some names 
that were once the names of men ! As they start up 
around us we seem to be standing in the midst of the 
sculpture gallery of hell. The imprint of Satanic art on 
every feature speaks the terrible skill with which the 
great master can imbue his disciples. And all reaches 
its horrid perfection in less than three-score years and 
ten ! In so short a time the character is fixed like the 
iron cooled in the mould, to hold forever its flawed and 
distorted shape. There may be only that short space 
between the awful result and the light, thoughtless inno- 
cence of the child that plays to-day about your hearth- 
stone. 

The hour to begin to improve time should be the ear- 
liest possible. Delay is madness, folly, suicide. Many a 
man converted in his later years feels sadly that his life 
is but a fragment. And how many want even that frag- 
ment! 



17* 



XL. 

WASTED TIME. 

" Redeeming the Time."— Eph. v. 16. 

* c \/T ILLI0NS °* mme y for an inch of time " ex_ 

JLtJl claimed Elizabeth, the gifted but ambitious 
Queen of England, on her dying bed. Unhappy woman ! 
Reclining on her couch, with ten thousand dresses in her 
wardrobe, a kingdom at her feet — but all now valueless — 
she shrieks in anguish, but in vain, for an inch of time. 
Her three-score years and ten are gone, and an empire 
cannot buy one moment back. It is too late. 

What an impressive lesson ! How significant alike to 
queens and beggars, to princes and subjects I What is to 
be done, must be done while time is ours. And if we 
linger, like the beggared queen, we may wait too long. 
To waste time is to store up remorse. To yield it to sin, 
is spiritual suicide. 

Time may be sadly abused ! It is like a blank check. 
One man may twist it up to light a taper, and another 
with the patient fingers of toil and duty may trace upon 
it lettering that will make it current for uncounted gold. 
It is like a painter's canvas, on which you may portray 
a man or a reptile, a John or a Judas. It is the warp 
of life, into which you may weave threads of shoddy or 
threads of gold. Waste time, and it matters little what 

(394) 



WASTED TIME. 395 

else you economize. Spendthrift of this, you are bank- 
rupt forever. The practical wisdom of this life is to 
discern its value and use it well. Those years when we 
can earn the least are often most precious. The hours of 
childhood trace the features of manhood, and sow the 
harvests of age. Wasted days are often like broken 
links in the chain of life, leaving it to fall into useless 
heaps of rusty iron. A neglected opportunity of study 
sends one that might have been a Paley or a Brougham 
down to the ranks of ignoble indolence or toilsome drudg- 
ery. Declining a calling or a business that demands 
energy may prove the momentary mistake that expands 
with years, till it casts the whole life in shadow. To 
seize the right moment, or to put every moment to its right 
use, constitutes the grand strategy of life's campaign. 

How many thousands yet in the vigor of life can go 
back, in memory, to hours which they would give bitter 
tears to recall ! But those hours are beyond recovery ! 
There is no redemption for them. The past, more re- 
lentless than the grave, never gives up its dead. There 
is no resurrection of a wasted privilege. The hours that 
folly has imprisoned never come back, except in haunt- 
ing memories, from the vaults of darkness. Summer 
birds migrate back and forth with the seasons ; but the 
flying moment never turns back, but hastens on with its 
record to the bar of God. Spring will clothe the dead 
earth with new life, but the dead year never blooms 
again. You may advertise for lost moments, but none 
ever answered the advertisement of a " lost day." The 
time that has fled, is irrevocable for evermore. 

It is this fact that helps to invest it with such unutter- 
able value. It cannot be exchanged or transferred, or re- 
deemed, or retained. You may pawn it for a toy, but the 



396 LIFE LESSONS. 

treasuries of Kings will not pay its ransom. You may fling 
it into the abyss of folly, as you would a pebble into the 
sea, but all the drag-nets of human art can never bring it 
back. Like the key that might have unlocked the iron 
safe stored with treasure — it is thrown away, and no 
Chubb or Hobbs can devise its duplicate. 

There are some crowded graveyards where coffin has 
been piled on coffin, till the first buried seems trebly 
buried. So it is with the crowded graveyard of our 
years. Those years will never be ours again. All that 
we can do is to plant the flowers of memory over their 
dust, and yet every flower will wither or change to a 
thorn if its roots strike down to the duet, of years of folly 
and of sin. 

Such considerations as these forbid every thoughtful 
man to trifle with time, to jest it away, or heedlessly 
surrender it at fashion's or fancy's call. It is one of 
those few possessions which are granted us, which make 
all the show and glitter which distinguish the rich from 
the poor, and the peer from the peasant, of but small ac- 
count. Masters of time, rightful owners by the rightful 
use of it, we are more than the lords of acres. Eich in 
time, by hoarding the moments in duty done, one may 
look down on Rothschilds and Astors. This is our 
princeliest heritage and most precious capital. We can 
invest it in industry, study, application, charity. We 
can carve the hours into deeds which our children shall 
bless. We can build up the years into well executed 
plans of beneficence and devotion, holy temples of the 
heart within which the sacred presence of the Spirit shall 
abide. 

But it is as related to eternity that time assumes its 
highest value. This is our probationary state. As the 



WASTED TIME. 397 

fleeting days of childhood give shape to manhood and 
its destinies, so the years of time shape the eternal future 
of the soul. How insignificant seem the little grains of 
sand ! Yet you see them heaped up and framed to be- 
come the mould in which the molten iron is poured. So 
with the grains of time. Whether you design it or not, 
you are turning them into the mould in which liquid 
thought, feeling and purpose crystallize, till they are 
like the iron or the granite. A wasted, squandered day 
is not simply so much reduction of spiritual existence and 
activity. It is a flaw in the mould. Its imprint on the 
character is imperfection and deformity. Years of sin 
are not simply so much offset against the balance of a re- 
formed life. They are such a portion of the mould itself 
broken up. 

Bend the twig and you incline the tree. One moment's 
pressure on the sapling may do more to injure it or shape 
it, than tempests in after years. No arithmetic can com- 
pute the results that must flow from an error now. Each 
of these moments may be the pivot on which a world to 
come is poised. Thousands in the agonies of despair 
have been able to look back to some critical juncture, 
some memorable moment, on the issue of which the scope 
of after years depended. There, just at that point, a 
single moment seems like the turning point of destiny. 
It might have opened the door to hope and heaven. It 
might have been made the gateway to eternal blessed- 
ness. It might have been the first round of a Jacob's 
ladder. It might have marked the point where, turning 
on his track, the penitent sinner should have been greeted 
by that gratulation of angels over the new-born soul — 
" behold he prayeth." 

Is such a moment precious ? Who would run the risk 



398 LIFE LESSONS. 

of flinging it away like chaff, of dissolving such a jewel 
in the wine cup, or leaving it to swell the rubbish of a 
wasted life? Such a moment comes to all. It marks 
the crisis of the soul's destiny. To you it may have come 
to-day, and it may never come again. Yet every moment 
that leads to it, or draws it on, is also precious. Each 
day is preparing you for it, to use it or abuse it. These 
tickings of the clock, these beatings of the pulse, these 
noiseless swingings of the pendulum of time, hasten the 
striking of the hour of doom. The impression of every 
scene, of every lesson, of every folly is pushing you on 
to some decision — whether you will serve God or not, 
whether you will consecrate your life to its true end or 
not. On, on rolls the tide of hours, days and years, 
swifter and stronger in current, setting more resistless 
toward the cataract. Moment flows into moment, melts 
into the mass and is lost to view, but every drop swells 
the* flood that bears you on — that presses you to the final 
issue. 

And then think of wasted time — for all is wasted, so 
long as the great end of life is overlooked. What are 
feasts and fortunes and honors, if God is not glorified ? 
What is all industry, if you give not diligence to make 
your calling and election sure ? What is all business, if 
you are never busy for God, never busy to lay up treasure 
in heaven? The sands of the desert are barren, but 
what is their curse to that of the time-grains of a life 
given over to vanity, frivolity and sin? Over this 
Sahara-waste sweep the burning blasts of remorse. Over 
it no fragrance breathes, within it no flowers bloom. 
Only the life that is devoted to God, that breathes in 
prayer and exults in praises, that garners the hours and 
coins them all with the stamp of duty, with the image 



WASTED TIME. 399 

and superscription of their great proprietor — only such a 
life is worthy the name. Any other is but a living death. 
Any other is but the slow steady deliberate murder of 
time — the sacrifice of probation and privilege on the 
altar of mammon or lust. 

How long then before you will begin truly to live ? 
An uncertain future makes a day, an hour, too long to 
wait. And even if the future was certain, it would be 
madness to live any part of it in a course of deeds that 
we shall want undone. Undone ! It cannot be. Tears 
cannot wash the past out. It is cut in the rock forever. 
There stands the soul's changeless image. You cannot 
re-form, or new model, or correct it. Suppose it is a Jug- 
gernaut, a Mammon, a Gallileo, a Simon Magus ! Will it 
do to wait till it becomes such before you begin to mould 
and shape your years to save them from such perversion ? 

You will find it a hard, an almost hopeless task, 

u To improve the remnant of your wasted span, 
And having lived a triiier, die a man." 

" 'Tis well if looked for at so late a day, 
In the last scene of such a senseless play, 
True wisdom will attend your feeble call, 
And grace your actions, ere the curtain fall. 
Souls that have long despised their heavenly birth, 
Their wishes all impregnated with earth — 
For three-score years employed with ceaseless care 
In catching smoke and feeding upon air — 
Conversant only with the ways of men, 
Barely redeem the short remaining ten." 

If they do, what remains is only like scattered freight 
picked from a wreck, the poor sad memorials of life's great 
disaster, full of tears and vain regrets. Will you take 
them as your sum of life ? 



XLI. 

THE PSALM OF LIFE. 

" Making melody in your heart to the Lord." — Eph. v. 19. 

A SHORT time since it was my privilege to hear 
some hundreds of children sing. With life and 
spirit they sang the " Forward, march !" and in mellower 
tone and with sweeter pathos, " There's a light in the 
window for thee." 

It was, indeed, a privilege to hear them. There was 
a charm in that multitude of young voices harmonizing 
together. I was called upon to address them, and I told 
them, as the most appropriate thing that came to my 
mind, that I wished they would each make their life a 
song of praise, so that their words, and deeds, and 
thoughts, and plans should harmonize together, and that 
would make the true Psalm of Life. 

The Psalm of Life ! or life a psalm of praise to God, 
rendering to Him in grateful devotion the true harmony 
of soul, of all its faculties, and thoughts, and acts, through 
all the years of probation !* Is not this the standard, the 
Divine standard, at which all should aim ? Does it not 
express that which, if realized, would answer for us the 
true end of our being ? Does it not answer to the high- 
est and noblest ideal which the soul can cherish ? And 
what is sin, in all its forms, in all its variety of shapes, 
but just the discord which disturbs the harmony ; some- 

(400) 






THE PSALM OF LIFE. 



401 



times in a single note ; sometimes in whole stanzas ; 
sometimes in the whole song ? It puts others out. It 
jars and grates, as it were, on the ear. It makes all 
that hear it uncomfortable. It destroys all harmony. 
It deals with the music of a holy life, or of a pure so- 
ciety, as the earthquake does with a fair landscape, cov- 
ering it with confusion and rubbish ! 

To secure the true divine harmony in the heart, the 
life must be consistent with itself, the thoughts with the 
words, the words with the deeds, and all of them with 
one another, and with the law and will of God. Nothing 
short of this will ensure a perfect and harmonious life. 

So to social order and happiness it is essential that the 
views and feelings of men should accord. Not that they 
should be precisely alike in faculty, or education, or ap- 
prehensions of things. They may differ here as the dif- 
ferent parts vary in music, and yet there shall be, if only 
each, true to the keynote of Christian love, executes his 
part, a higher melody. 

But to secure this result, each individual note must be 
correct. What if it be a little thing. A slight varia- 
tion produces discord. And hence it is that to the gen- 
eral order, and harmony, and happiness we must train 
each thought and utterance of the individual soul. 

The heart of man may be compared to an organ, its 
keys swept by the fingers cf each individual will. Some 
with rude hands, finding it disordered and untuned, force 
it to send forth harsh and grating tones. Some pour 
forth from it the anthems of praise, and some the peals 
of holiday music, while others make it breathe the 
thunder-gusts of passion, or roll to the music of the 
devil's march. 

Where the thoughts and words do not accord, you have 



4 02 LIFE LESSONS. 

the incarnate discord of the deceiver and the hypocrite. 
When a man means one thing and says another, there is 
an incongruity that arrests attention and invites criti- 
cism. You can put no faith in him. You may pity, but 
you despise him. His own soul jars within itself. 

When the words and deeds do not accord, there you 
have the discord of false professions and false promises. 
A man says one thing and does another. He speaks fair 
and acts foul. He puts on the sacred mantle of truth in 
order to deceive and betray. Or he is simply reckless 
of truth, and feels no longer bound by promises. Such a 
man is discord incarnate in the knave, the cheat, the in- 
triguer, the liar. His presence in society is a constant 
jar, and he has no peace within his own soul — no music 
there. There can be no melody in the heart. 

But more than this, a man's aims ought to harmonize 
with one another, or he will have the discord of restless- 
ness and discontent ! Some men would have objects 
which they cannot attain at once. They are like chil- 
dren that want to keep the orange and eat it at the same 
time. They want wealth, and yet do not want to toil for 
it. They want honor and respect, and the reputation of 
usefulness, and yet they want ease and indolence. Some 
would be at once patrons of incongruous things. They 
aim at forbidden fruit, and yet would retain an honest 
purpose. Their life is a perpetual discord, disquieting 
themselves and others at the same time. 

In order to harmony, life must have one grand aim, 
which shall act as leader, and with which all others as 
subordinate shall accord. Else it will be a Babel of in- 
congruous sounds. It will be like a mob instead of an 
army, without an acknowledged commander. There will 
be no order, no music in it. Who can doubt — who that 



THE PSALM OF LIFE. 403 

can answer the first question, What is the chief end of 
man? — what that leading aim that is to control all 
others should be ? 

But the life, also, should be one consistent whole. 
Every added year, and day, like a new stanza, should be 
set to the same music. It is certainly well for a bad 
man to become good, but it is better that there should 
be no need of change. What a terrible sentence that 
is, " His bones are full of the sins of his youth." And 
yet how often it is true ! Those early years were a wild, 
mad glee. The later ones are a saddened dirge. Some- 
times a man is lured by one thing, and. sometimes by 
another. Now he would be a Pharaoh, and now a saint ; 
now a Solomon, and now a hermit ; now a hero, and 
now a pleasure-seeker. Now he would pray, and again 
he would swear. Now he would be a reformer, a stern 
censor of morals, and again he would plead the cause of 
immorality and license. He would praise truth, and yet 
betray her ; commend honesty, yet cheat himself ; extol 
religion, yet trample it under foot. This is to make life 
a discord, a Babel, a Bedlam ; to shut up together in the 
same limits the lamb and the wolf, the dove and the vul- 
ture, the deer and the tiger. 

There are some lives that are like a combination of 
acid and alkali. The diverse elements neutralize one 
another. There are principle and passion, generosity 
and revenge, pity and rage, kindly sympathies and miser 
lusts. There are some whose incongruous views and 
schemes remind us of the toes of the golden-headed im- 
age of prophetic vision — a mixture of iron and of miry 
clay. They build, perhaps, on the rock, but with hay, 
wood, stubble. Their life is a disjointed affair, a mass 
of fragments, a heap of commingled lumber and brush- 



404 LIFE LESSONS. 

wood, put into shape. They have pursued one thing and 
then another, never satisfied, never reaching any thing, 
mixing up, in fact, snatches of scores of songs with an 
incongruity that would be ludicrous if it was not so 
disastrous. 

But the true life is that which will harmonize in all its 
parts, so that, as timber fits to timber, deed will fit to 
deed and aim to aim, to complete one perfect whole, and 
like the varied notes of music, each shall have its place 
and contribute to the melody. Is not this the just 
ideal ? 

Yet the life may be consistent in itself and yet not in 
harmony with the will and providence of God. But this 
also is essential. Men like to be able to put forth the 
claim to consistency ; but there may be an unholy as well 
as a holy consistency. A desperately wicked man will 
naturally be regarded as more consistent than one just 
wavering between good and evil. Satan, doubtless, is a 
model of consistency. Every added year of wickedness, 
like an iron harrow dragged over a field, leaves fewer 
green things behind it to check the uniform desolation. 
As habits become more rigid, as the purposes become more 
fixed, character approximates to the changeless features 
of an iron statue, and takes upon itself the immobility of 
desperation. Consistency, merely, may be consistency in 
evil. It may be the harmony of sin. It may be the 
dead level of depravity. It may be a uniform black- 
ness, unbroken by a ray of light. Deed may fit to deed, 
word to word, thought to thought, and each to the 
other, so that life shall be in warp and woof one uninter- 
rupted, seamless cerement of sin and death. There shall 
be no broken thread of penitence, no gentle shade of 
pity, no brightness of hope. 



THE PSALM OF LIFE. 405 

A man may thus be in awful consistency with himself, 
but in discord with God and truth, and the laws of holi- 
ness and heaven. He may come into perpetual collision 
with these, and be in conflict with all with which he 
should harmonize. The whole realm of God's providential 
government, is to the thoughtful ear an immense organ, 
ever pealing forth in thunder-tones the law of Sinai, the 
notes of holiness, always proclaiming, " the way of the 
transgressor is hard," and in its undertones you may hear 
the echoes of the approaching judgment. A life that is 
not holy and godly jars with these. In plain words, the 
harmony of life requires, that it should fit into the Divine 
system — demands that it shall not run athwart the laws 
of eternal truth and justice. If it does so, in ever so 
small a matter, it breaks in upon the holy order of God's 
government, it grates in the universal anthem that goes 
up to heaven from the Creator's works. 

We see, then, that there can be no perfect melody in 
the heart while sin is there. If word is discordant with 
word, or deed with deed, or thought with thought ; if 
one speaks what he does not mean, or professes what he 
does not practice, or promises what he does not fulfill ; 
if the elements of his moral being are at war with one 
another, the passions with the reason, the appetites with 
the conscience ; if, in a word, the psalm of life has not 
been tuned to the key-note of the Gospel ; if our uniform 
and practical purpose of consecration to God does not 
bear down all before it ; if the aims and aspirations of 
the soul do not all accord in " glory to God in the highest, 
peace on earth, good will to men," there can be no proper 
melody in the heart nor the soul. 

But let this be the case, and that melody is the legiti- 
mate and necessary result. Let the soul, by nature at 



4 o6 LIFE LESSONS. 

discord with itself, with conscience, with its condition, 
with the laws of holiness and God, be converted, so that 
selfish will is subdued, so that sin is abandoned, so that 
God is loved, and His law becomes a delight ; let the 
soul, purified by the power of atoning blood, and at- 
tuned to the praise of Divine Grace, be brought to feel 
that there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ 
Jesus, that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit," 
and then, instead of a cage of tigers and screech-owls, 
it shall be the orchestra of the Divine Spirit, where all 
the faculties and affections of the soul shall unite in the 
chorus of " Holiness to the Lord." The grace of God 
shall breathe through it, and wake from its trembling 
strings a music beyond that of ^Eolian harps. There 
will be a sweet concert of thought and deed ; an unmur- 
muring submission to God's providence ; a holy joy in 
doing His will ; and those outpourings of Christian love, 
in kindly and charitable purpose, which are the very 
music to which God's ministering angels, on their earth- 
ward mission, clap their joyous wings. 

A holy life is more than a Beethoven's strains or a 
Handel's "Messiah." There is a glorious music in it 
unmatched by the masters of human song. The noted 
organ of Freiberg is said to transport the listener and 
make him forget all else while he listens— now to the 
roar of the cataract, and now to the thunder-peal of the 
storm, and again to the rippling music of the waves as they 
die away upon the strand. But that organ of the human 
soul which can pour forth the trumpet song of Miriam, 
or the lyrics of David, or breathe forth the loving 
words of the Patmos exile, or the heavenward aspira- 
tions of the Apostle to the Gentiles ; which finds expres- 
sion in the meekness of Moses, or the devotion of Isaiah, 



THE PSALM OF LIFE. 



407 



or the heroism of Judson, or the fervor of Baxter, or the 
humanity of a Nightingale, a Dix or a Howard — this 
organ of the human soul, its keys touched by the fingers 
of the Divine Spirit, its music the chants and anthems 
of heaven itself, its harmony, sweeter than sweetest in- 
cense, ascending to the listening ear of the Lord God of 
Hosts, is more wonderful than any whose keys have been 
shaped by human fingers, more glorious than any that 
far-famed minster or cathedral can boast. 

And yet in the lowliest lot, and by the humblest fire- 
side, where the luxuries of earthly music are unknown, 
there may be such outbreathing of sweet content and 
gentle charity as shall make the loss of other music un- 
felt, and shall invite the ear of angels to listen to the 
song ; for there are deeds, and affections, and heaven- 
ward aspirations too grand for note-book or organ peal — 
a music of life infinitely above the reach of the highest 
art. If God Himself dwells within the soul, it shall be 
full of heaven, and heaven is more than music. 

" A life of duty lends to all it sees 

The beauty of its thought ; 
And fairest forms and sweetest harmonies 

Make glad its way unsought. 
In sweet accordancy of prayer and praise 

The singing waters run ; 
And sunset mountains wear in light above 

The smile of duty done. 
Sure stands the promise ; ever to the meek 

A heritage is given ; 
Nor lose they earth who single-hearted seek 

The heritage of heaven." 




Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Orive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



IHIH m 

mmm 



